


For the Picking

by QuickLikeLight



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - High School, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Coming of Age, First Time, First Time Bottoming, Football | Soccer, Homophobic Language, M/M, Masturbation, Rimming, Sexual Fantasy, Teacher-Student Relationship, Topping from the Bottom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-08
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-03 23:50:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1074505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickLikeLight/pseuds/QuickLikeLight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson is much too young to be this much trouble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FutureMrsWatson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FutureMrsWatson/gifts).



> This happened and I would hate myself for it but [this](http://bombsite.com/issues/61/articles/2092) lovely image won't leave my mind, so I don't. I've tagged it underage, mostly because "underage" is different in different places. John Watson is 17 in this fic, and Greg Lestrade (34) is his teacher and football coach, so there are definite consent/knowledge/power dynamics things happening there. If you're triggered by that sort of thing, please do not read. If you are not, welcome aboard.

Last period of the day. Fifteen more minutes to get through. A couple more names and dates, and then football practice, and then he could go home and wank and feel horrible about himself in private. Just fifteen more minutes. But he was right there, in the front row, chewing idly on his biro as if it wasn’t driving Greg completely round the bend. John Watson’s pale pink tongue wrapped around the end unconsciously, seeking out the firm plastic in the same playfully heated way he sought flirtatious girls at their lockers, or the football on the pitch. Greg stumbled over his words, the lecture about the Wars of the Roses momentarily forgot as the end of that pen traced smooth, pink, slightly parted lips, and deep blue eyes stared dreamily into space from under flaxen fringe. It was a long moment before Greg collected himself, glanced at the clock, and gave it up as a bad shot.

“Don’t forget, exam on Thursday, we’ll go over the answers on Friday, retakes Monday. You’re-” he barely got the words out before a rush of sixth formers were pouring out the door, “-dismissed.” He watched them walk out, almost en masse, studiously not searching for John in the crowd. When the door closed, Greg sighed and raked a hand over his face. He closed his eyes as he slumped back against the chalk board. That could not happen again. It was totally unprofessional. John Watson was his student, a player on his team. More than that, John Watson was a _child_. A bloody attractive seventeen-year-old child, sure, but still… a child. No man’s skin was that soft looking, that smooth and unlined. No adult was that guilelessly sexy. Greg shook his head, disgusted with himself, and started to pack away his notes.

A faint tapping sound caught his attention, and Greg’s head shot up from where it had been buried in his satchel. There John Watson sat, a crooked grin on his face, indigo eyes flashing.

“Coach Lestrade,” his tongue always did something a bit slippery on the “L” that made Greg’s knees weak. “I think I must have spaced out a bit in class. On accident. Didn’t mean to. Missed that last announcement though.” There was something hot and insinuating in the way John spoke, and Greg restrained himself from shuddering as he imagined bending the boy over the big oak desk and forcing his cock into that sweet, tight arse. He wiped the image from his brain immediately, but the slight smile on John’s face said too clearly that he didn’t do it fast enough.

“Daydreaming, Watson? I was just reminding everyone about the exam on Thursday. Should be paying attention, you know. I’ll have laps from you again,” he tried to control his voice, keep the gravel from it. John’s eyebrows quirked.

“I understand, sir. Whatever you want me to do,” John stood, his light coloured uniform trousers doing little to hide the beginnings of an erection. He twitched his hips a bit from side to side, not quite a shake, just settling as he moved toward the door, his book bag hoisted over one shoulder. “See you out on the pitch, yeah?”

Greg bit down on a sigh, watching John watch him. The boy – student – young man pushed the door open with one shoulder and disappeared out into the milieu of student bodies beyond. Breathing a sigh of relief, Greg slumped back into his chair. He didn’t miss the opening of the classroom door, or the quick, long strides of the man he least wanted to see at the moment, but he didn’t look up either.

“Really, Greg, he’s not even that attractive,” Sherlock mused, perching on the edge of Greg’s desk and laughing. _Laughing_. The sod.

“Yeah, well, it’s unlikely you’d know much about being attractive, there, Holmes,” Greg shot back. Sherlock huffed, but didn’t leave, much to Greg’s chagrin.

“You’re not following me to practice again today, you git.”

“I am only doing my best to look out for you, Lestrade. I’d hate for you to find yourself unexpectedly trapped in the showers with a twelve year old or something.” Greg grabbed his satchel and rose smoothly from his chair, willing himself not to rise to the obvious bait, in _either_ fashion.  

“He’s seventeen, not twelve,” he growled over his shoulder.

“Ah, correct, only half your age then, much more acceptable,” Sherlock quipped back. Greg fumed all the way out to the practice field.

 

“Why’s Mr. Holmes at our practice again, d’ya think?” Mike Stamford asked, lacing up his shoes against the small set of open-air stands. John shook his head, not looking up from his feet while he pulled up on his knee-high socks. “Oi, Watson, did you bring Harry’s socks again?” Mike laughed and nodded at the faded red stripes that really did look quite pink in the brittle sunshine. John slugged his friend’s shoulder.

“Shut it you prick,” he smiled as he rolled the tops down once. The socks were much too long for his short legs, stopping right in the middle of his knees rather than an inch or two below them. John didn’t mind though. He was small, sure, but he was fast, and accurate, and tough. Besides, the long socks helped him feel less self-conscious about the shorts that only came to mid-thigh.

“Coach Greg looks a bit peaky today, don’t he?” Mike started again, thrusting his chin out to point toward the harried History teacher.

“He looks fine,” John flushed, trying not to think about the way he’d gotten hard in class, listening to Coach Lestrade’s deep voice, watching his broad shoulders twist under his blazer as he gestured toward dates and names on the board behind him. He avoided even looking in the teacher’s direction, but Mike was too damned observant.

“Better luck getting off with that brunet from homeroom. She knows you exist, mate,” Mike smiled, but it was a kind smile, the kind of smile that came from someone who understood not getting what you wanted. John just shook his head. Sarah was nice, but she wasn’t what he wanted, and John wasn’t Mike.

The shrill of a whistle cut through the spicy autumn air and the boys took to the field with their teammates. And if John felt two sets of appraising eyes on him during practice, he didn’t let it affect his game. If anything, he played harder.

 

“Don’t forget, Watson… you owe me laps. Five, all the way around the pitch if you please.”

John dragged a soaked towel over his forehead and panted on the sidelines. He was bent over, taking deep breaths, his hands resting on his knees. The position was… problematic. It pushed his arse out over his tense, shapely thighs, revealed in tantalizingly tanned slivers between the hem of his too-short shorts and too-long socks. Greg chewed the inside of his cheek but didn’t look away. He wanted to. No, he didn’t. He should have though. John lifted his head, watching Greg just as carefully, and then stood with a groan. He stretched, bringing his arms above his head, his shirt pulling up to reveal his soft, smooth, pale stomach, a dark blond trail of hair leading down from his navel. Greg snapped at him.

“Today, Watson.”

“Sorry, Coach,” John grinned before taking off.

Behind him, Sherlock cleared his throat. Nosy git.

“You can go now, Holmes. Show’s over,” Greg called, not even bothering to look over his shoulder. It wouldn’t matter. Hell, Sherlock would probably follow him home. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“I’ll wait for your delinquent to finish, I think. I may need to discuss an exam question with him anyway,” Sherlock stood right next to him, close enough that Greg could feel the warmth emanating from his… coworker? Colleague? Friend? Whatever.

“Do what you like,” Greg settled on the bench, explicitly not watching the faint spring of John Watson’s feet off the ground, the way he bounced and the heave of his chest with labored breath, the way his head lolled on his neck. It was much too easy to imagine him instead bouncing on Greg’s cock, panting with the need to come, his head hanging out of overwhelming pleasure rather than fatigue. So Greg did not watch. Instead, he watched his own hands, and tried not to think of them smoothing down that lightly furred expanse of John’s belly, pressing apart muscular thighs, running through golden hair… _Fuck_. A snigger from the bench next to him made Greg glare at his unwanted companion.

“Perhaps you do need to hit the showers, _Coach_ ,” Sherlock nodded toward the obvious swelling in Greg’s trousers. Greg flushed and blew his whistle twice. John stopped where he was, pulling his hands above his head to help him breathe.

“Pack it in, Watson,” Greg called out, and then flinched at his own choice of words. Sherlock smirked.

“That was only three laps, Coach Lestrade,” John panted as he crossed the pitch toward them. “You sure you don’t want me to do two more?”

“Are you asking to do more, Watson?” One dark eyebrow rose.

“No sir, Coach,” John laughed. It was clear and bubbling and God, so _young_.

“Get on with ya, then,” Greg motioned toward the locker rooms with his head and turned his back on the boy. Sherlock followed the blond with his eyes, watching the lithe movements of muscle and tendon under tightly-stretched skin, as John ran all the way back to the changing area.

“One does see the appeal, after being subjected to all that… bouncing,” he drawled, shooting Greg an almost predatory look. Greg groaned.

“Please tell me that you’re not about to convert John Watson into one of your slobbering hangers-on, Holmes. I might vomit.”

“He’d be ever so much more interesting to play with than Dean Dimmock, you have to agree,” Sherlock bumped into Greg with one wool-covered shoulder and pitched his voice higher, imitating the teenage boys they were constantly surrounded by, “Mr. Lestrade, please, do you need help carrying your things up to your office?” His voice went back to normal. “History TAs… Not nearly as helpful as lab assistants, really.”

“Yeah, I bet you’d let that Victor Trevor assist you in more than just the lab, Holmes,” Greg bumped back, making his voice higher and more posh. “So sorry Professor Holmes, could you tell me where you’d like the graduated beakers stored? In my rich arse, maybe?”

Sherlock glared at the mention of his star pupil. Greg just rolled his eyes and began the slog to the faculty parking lot. The chemist stayed by his side all the way to the car.

“You need a ride or summat?” Greg grinned when his put-on slang made Sherlock flinch.

“Not as such, no,” Sherlock leaned one trousered hip against the fender of Greg’s sedan. “Mycroft has asked me to come to London this weekend to assist him with some small mystery his peons can’t suss out. I’ll have to miss class on Friday. I have a substitute, obviously, but just in case… would you very much mind-”

“Making sure the lab is clean before I go? Sure. Yeah, I can do that,” Greg swung open his car door, stopping it only inches from the tall chemistry instructor, and clambered into the front seat. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have an exam to write tonight.”

“Keep in mind that the exact color of John Watson’s eyebrows isn’t necessary knowledge for an A-level, Lestrade,” Sherlock popped the door with his hip, pushing it closed, and cutting off Greg’s hasty retort.

 

Greg groaned as hot water sluiced down over his skin. His head ached from writing the exam, and his shoulders had been tense for what felt like weeks. He ran shampoo through his hair, trying not to think about how it was already turning grey, and him just thirty-four.

 _Just thirty-four_ , he laughed. His mind’s eye filled with soft, smooth, tanned, blond, untouchable John Watson. John Watson who was literally half his age. John Watson who sucked on a biro in class, and licked his lips during practice. John Watson who flirted with girls and came in with hickeys and did nothing to hide teenage erections. John Watson who caressed the syllables of his name with his tongue. John Watson who was driving him insane.

Greg’s cock stiffened as he trailed a hand down his throat, past his collarbones. The hair that furred his chest there was distinctly salt-and-pepper now, still darker than not, but resolutely turning. He moaned as he thought about what John’s golden head would look like resting there, tonguing his nipples and kissing his breastbone, running his short fingers through sparse silver curls. He let his hand slip further down, over the trim plane of his stomach, through the dark hair at his pelvis. He hurriedly spilled conditioner into his hands, slicking a bit of it through the short, slightly waving hair on his head, and sliding the rest through the nest of hair surrounding his cock. His grip was slippery against the hot, smooth skin of his balls, and he tugged clumsily, imagining John’s inexperienced hands on his body.

Greg gripped the base of his cock, smoothing his hand up over the shaft, working the conditioner into the foreskin. He pulled gently on his balls with the other hand, focusing on the mental image of John running laps that afternoon. No, _good_ , but not quite… Instead, John standing in the History classroom, half hard and sucking his biro like a lolly, licking around the end lasciviously. That was more like it. Greg stroked himself loosely, allowing his cock to barely fill the circle of his fingers, imagining John’s hesitance. Then, his youthful exuberance: a few quick, harsh tugs. Then, his growing excitement: Greg placed the back of his left hand just in front of the head, allowed it to bump into his cock in glancing, fleeting slides of pre-come smearing contact.

Suddenly, John was kneeling naked in his small shower stall, stroking Greg off, letting Greg’s cock rub briefly against his face. Greg imagined his blond hair growing dark under the shower head, imagined rivulets of water running down his face, off his chin, to his lightly muscled chest. Greg had seen that chest before; August practices were so warm that most of the boys played without shirts at some point, and John had been smooth and hairless, his muscles defined but not bulging, suited to his small, compact frame. The thought made Greg shudder, and he tightened his hold on his cock, thrusting his hips shallowly into his fist. He imagined John’s face there, under him, waiting, watching him with those big dark eyes. It was a face worth painting, and Greg wasn’t an artist, but he wanted to streak it with himself, watch his come splash over that darkened skin, catch in thick blond eyelashes, slip between slightly parted lips.

The mental image overwhelmed him, and Greg came with a bitten off cry. He pressed his face against the cool tile, working himself through his orgasm, and the warm water continued to slide down his back. He tried to feel guilty. He couldn’t. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like all my porn, this thing keeps growing on me. I'm not opposed to hanging out here for a while. If you have things you'd like to see, feel free to let me know. Otherwise, please keep in mind that this is unbeta'd, and if you catch any errors, please bring them to my attention. :)

“Mum? Mum, are you home?”

“Don’t shout, Hamish, I’m in the kitchen.”

“Sorry, sorry, just… didn’t know if you’d be home today,” John slung his backpack onto the kitchen table. His mother winced. “Sorry. Headache again?”

“Yes. It’s not as bad as usual, though, so I thought I’d attempt some washing up.” Linda Watson pointed to the overflowing garbage bin. “Take that out, would you? I’ve never seen so many take-out containers in my life.”

John smirked, but did as he was asked, hefting the heavy bag with ease. Linda smiled.

“All that sport has done you some good, Hamish,” she was indulgent, even through the pain. When John returned, a plate of biscuits and two cups of tea sat on the kitchen table. He took a long sip, savoring the milky blend. Across the table, his mother sat slumping, her head in her hands.

“Does it hurt really terribly?” he kept his voice quiet and watched little ripples run through his tea.

“Not as terribly as it normally does,” Linda tried to smile. “I have to go into London this weekend for some testing. Your father can-”

“Father should go with you, Mum,” John interrupted. “You’ll need him. I don’t. If anything happens, I can ring Harry.” Linda nodded gently, and John did his best to grin at her. “Don’t worry, Mike’ll be out of town, so no unauthorized parties, either.”

“Where’s he off to then?”

“His dad’s taking him to visit some universities next week. To get a feel for them, you know.” John took a bite of biscuit, and did not look at his mother. He didn’t have to; the look of alternating self-loathing and abject sorrow was too familiar. Instead, he changed the subject. “Oh, hey, Mum, d’you have that marker pen? The red one? I need to re-color the stripes on my football socks. They’ve faded again, and you can see the pink underneath.”

Linda pointed to the cupboard and sipped her tea.

“We could… get you some new ones, while we’re in town, you know?”

“Don’t worry about it, Mum,” John grinned, pulling the marker out. “No sense in replacing perfectly fine socks, just because Harry couldn’t pick a decent colour.”

 

 

Two days later, John Watson walked down the hall with all the purpose and grace of any seventeen year old _young man_ _not boy thank you_ , which is to say, little. He sidled up to Mike’s locker with one book clutched to his chest and a pen hanging out of his mouth.

“Ready for Coach Greg’s test then?” Mike asked, pulling a thick novel out of his locker and slamming it closed. There were dragons on the cover, and swirling golden text. John shrugged.

“History’s not so hard. I had to do some extra studying this unit, though…”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re always off in la-la land thinking about Coach Greg’s biceps or something,” Mike laughed as a flush burned up John’s face.

“It’s not like that, Mike,” he sputtered, but the walk to Coach Lestrade’s class gave him butterflies. The thought of Lestrade’s large, golden-brown hands on his waist made John’s breath catch. The idea of kissing the lips that regularly wrapped around that shrill, commanding whistle at practice made the nerves under his skin light up. Looking into those chocolate-brown eyes made his knees a bit weak, which was embarrassing, because John Watson was seventeen, emphatically _not_ a virgin (with girls, anyway) and definitely not some wilting hothouse flower. John stood straighter, willing himself to be a bit taller, and didn’t even glance at Sarah when she waved at him as he walked past. Mike smirked.

“Don’t think that’s going to help much, mate. He’s a teacher. And he’s probably not even into blokes, you know? I think he was married once, to a woman, I mean,” Mike looked conciliatory, as if that would somehow squash the tingling feeling in John’s fingers and toes.

“I don’t think that’s the issue,” John smiled, remembering the way Lestrade had looked at him after class on Tuesday, like he wanted to eat him up right there on the desk. His cock twitched in his pants and John bit his lip, reciting the chemical compounds he’d had to memorize for Mr. Holmes’ chemistry exam. Wouldn’t do, walking around like that. Not with anybody but Lestrade watching.

 

John stood panting in one of the stalls of the boy’s loo. He dropped his bag, which he had used to cover his arousal as he hastily exited class, and pulled the flies down on his trousers. The exam had passed quickly, and John had done his best to stay focused. It helped that Coach Lestrade had been sitting down at his desk, grading essays with harsh jerks of a red pen. Still, after John handed in his exam paper, he lost himself in daydreams about the older man, caught up in half-spun fantasies of strong arms and large hands and football shorts around his ankles. Blood burned up John’s face, to his ears, down the back of his neck. Mike, still working on his exam in the desk next to him, shot John a look that told him just how obvious his fantasizing was. He’d had to escape.

John let his head loll back and thump none too gently on the metal barrier between stalls. He pushed a hand clumsily into his pants and wrapped shaky fingers around the throbbing length of his erection. His breath caught in his chest. Coach Lestrade would be dismissing everyone soon. He’d stand there, behind that big oak desk, wearing trousers that hugged his arse and a checked button-down that accented his broad shoulders and narrow waist. Maybe, if John had stayed in class, Coach would have asked him to stay behind. Maybe he’d want to talk. Perhaps he’d have had some pointers for practice today. Or maybe…

John tugged his cock more insistently, pushing his pants down just under his balls. Maybe Coach Lestrade would have some more _personal_ pointers for him. Maybe he’d tell John to touch himself. Maybe he’d ask John to get down on his knees under that desk. Maybe he’d pull John’s khakis down and make him bend _over_ the desk. Maybe he’d sit there in his chair while John pleasured him. He’d run his fingers through John’s hair, and tell John what a good boy he was—

John shuddered as orgasm ripped through him. He bit the heel of his right hand, allowing the left to stroke his cock almost lazily through completion. The bright flush he’d been wearing since he sat down for his exam now spread all down his chest and up his neck. He took a couple of heaving breaths. Outside the loo door, he could hear the muted shuffling of boys and girls exiting their classes. John looked down, grimacing at the obvious stains on his trousers and the tail of his shirt, and started to sweep his softening cock back into his come-soaked pants. The clatter of the door opening made him freeze where he stood, and at any other time, John would have laughed at the picture he made, pants pulled down, cock still dribbling slightly in his hand.

“John? You in here, mate?” John had never been so happy to hear Mike Stamford’s voice.

“Yeah, I’m… ah… I’m here.”

Mike stood silently for a moment, and then coughed. John rolled his eyes.

“For fuck’s sake, Mike, I’m trapped in the guys’ loo with come all over my pants, so if you need to say something, just say it, okay?”

“Ah, yeah, okay. Yeah. Um. Mr. Holmes caught me on the way out of History, asked me to give you this note…” Mike shuffled forward and shoved a folded envelope through the large crevice between the door and the rest of the stall. “And, ah… it’s started raining, so um, no practice today. Coach Greg said to let you know. He thought you might be sick or something.”

John hung his head.

“Sick, huh? Is that what he said?”

Mike hemmed.

“Ah, no. He said ‘indisposed.’ He asked me specifically to come check on you.”

“So… he knows, then. For sure.”

“…Pretty sure, yeah.” Mike’s voice was gentle, a bit pitying, and it grated on John’s nerves. He immediately felt a flash of self-loathing. Leave it to him to have the nicest, most understanding friend on the face of the planet, and be a complete arse about it. John took a deep breath.

“Ah, Mike… do you think you could give me a ride home?”

“Of course, mate.”

The two boys stood silently, awkward, for another minute.

“Do you think you could leave while I change?”

“Oh,” Mike shuffled his feet, gathering himself to leave. “Course, John. I’ll just go start the car, yeah? And you just… I’ll see you in the car.”

The door to the loo squeaked as it closed behind him. John waited a full two beats before the giggles started, uncontrollable and awful, and tears formed in his eyes. He dragged his practice clothes out of his backpack. The shorts may have been too short, but at least they weren’t covered in ejaculate.

 

The rain continued to drizzle disappointingly all day Friday, and suddenly it seemed that the year recalled it was November.  The sky was startlingly grey and the wind outside howled horribly. The heating was working as hard as it could, but the large windows of the old school building made it impossible to keep the classrooms warm. John clutched his thin, threadbare jacket around his body as walked from class to class, trying resolutely to focus on his classwork rather than the embarrassing displays of the last few days. His head felt heavy and foggy, and while his work was done with mechanical precision, he could barely remember what had happened in each of his classes.

_This is ridiculous. I am an adult. There’s no reason to feel this way, just because_ _he knows… Oh, God, but he knows, and I have to see him in class, and at practice, and it was different when I just figured he suspected something, or it was just casual flirting, but he knows I was fucking wanking in the loo thinking about him and there is no way I can sit through the rest of this year knowing he knows..._ When John finally got to the last hour of the day, he was surprised to see a substitute in the room standing behind Coach Lestrade’s desk. He couldn’t decide if it was relief that made his ribs ache, or disappointment. He shuffled to his seat in the front row and slumped into it, half-heartedly sucking on the end of his biro.

“What’s Mr. Sutherland doing here? He’s subbing for Chemistry today,” Mike asked, slipping into the seat next to John with surprising agility for a boy of his size.

“Chemistry?”

“Yeah, you remember, Mr. Holmes is out today?”

Of course he remembered that Holmes was out. He fingered the note in his pocket, a succinct missive asking him to ensure that the lab was tidy before going home for the weekend, as “reparations” for a slight explosion he’d taken part in the week before. It was a bit unfair, really; John had already cleaned up the lab last week for that incident, and he wasn’t even the one at fault, primarily. But still, Mr. Holmes was generally terrifying, though he seemed to like John well enough, so he just quietly accepted the duty and planned to walk home in the sludge after the fact.

The door to the History classroom opened and Coach Lestrade strode in, his hands tucked into khaki trouser pockets. His long sleeve polo shirt had likely been tucked in at the beginning of the day, but it was decidedly untucked now. John reveled in it, like a red flag to his raging bull, even as he felt overwhelmed with shame.

“Ah, Sutherland, thanks for meeting me, sorry ‘bout the lateness, had a student with an exam question, you know,” Lestrade was rattling off. The substitute just smiled.

“So, Holmes has asked me to clean up the lab when the school day is over,” he pointed toward the electronic lock on the classroom door. “There’s a timer on these doors that only a faculty key code can override. They lock at 4:30 normally, but it’s 3:30 on Fridays. Make sure you’re ready to be out of there ASAP, because the timer locks both sides of the door. Stupid, really, but that’s the case,” Coach Lestrade laughed, “Don’t want you to get locked in!”

“Indeed, that would be most uncomfortable I imagine,” Mr. Sutherland replied. “Right, well, I’ll be out of your hair immediately then. There shouldn’t be any problems in the lab; we only did exam reviews today.”

“Holmes is a right dick when it comes to his lab.” Lestrade hesitated for a moment, and then titters of laughter from behind him caused his shoulders to slump. Without turning, he said loudly, “And if any of you tells him I said that, I’ll tell him you’re right, because he is one, and he needs to know it.”

John’s heart leapt in his chest. Lestrade was going to be in the lab after school. He had a note saying he should be in the lab after school. The doors would be locked, and only a faculty code could get someone in or out. With classes letting out for the weekend, and the weather the way it was, there was no way anybody would be around.

_He wants me. He knows, and he wants me._

The rest of class, time seemed to alternately slow to a standstill and fly right past. The warm look of pride Coach Lestrade had given him when he handed back John’s exam, a large red A scrawled across the top, had sent tingles down his spine and into his gut. Mike kept shooting him furtive looks, no doubt noting the dazed smile John felt on his own face and the flush on his neck and ears, but John stared ahead, not daring to indulge publically in the fulfillment of his fantasies.

When the bell finally rang, John restrained himself, walking quickly from the room (and from Mike, who was sending him glances that definitely said, “We are going to talk about whatever is happening in your brain right now”) and hiding himself in the loo. He stood on the toilet in a closed stall, keeping quiet and still as Mike came and went twice, calling his name. The last time, Mike’s voice was resigned as he called out, “I have to go, John. Dad’s waiting for me at home. I don’t… I don’t really know what you’re doing right now, but, ah… good luck. I’ll have my mobile on me, if you need to talk.”

John waited for the door to close. The hallways outside were mostly quiet. A glance at the clock on his mobile read out _3:18_ PM. Not much time then. As quickly as he could, John stripped out of his school uniform and put on, instead, his practice gear. He pulled the tall socks, now complete with red stripes instead of pink, up past his knees, and the short shorts to his waist. A long-sleeved t-shirt that had been his dad’s hung loosely off his shoulders, swallowing up his trim torso and hanging nearly past the hem of his shorts. John didn’t mind. Coach Lestrade obviously didn’t care that he was poor, that his clothes were worn and ill-fitting. It didn’t matter. For what he wanted, they wouldn’t need clothes anyway.

With minutes to spare, John fled down the corridor in socked-feet. He pulled up short in front of the chemistry lab door, but the room was dark behind closed blinds, and he couldn’t tell if anyone was inside. He took a deep breath to steel himself.

_You want this. You want him, and he wants you. And yes, it’ll be your first time with a bloke, but it can’t be all that different, can it? He’s a good man, he’ll be kind and it isn’t a big deal anyway, just a shag._ John took another breath, and opened the door.

The lab was silent. He perched on the large desk at the front of the room, letting his backpack fall to the floor behind it and setting his trainers on the chair. The hard wood pressed into his flesh and the coolness of the surface radiated through his thin shorts. He wished for a moment that he’d left his pants on underneath, but waved the thought off. It shouldn’t be long, the waiting. The lights were off, and Mr. Sutherland had obviously left, but Coach Lestrade hadn’t come in yet.

“Unless I’ve missed him,” John muttered to himself. But that didn’t make sense… the note had asked him to be here, hadn’t made any mention of the timer. He was obviously supposed to wait for a faculty member…

The door opened with a groan and John jumped, startled. One sock-covered heel hit the desk with a thud as Lestrade entered, and the coach whirled around, slamming the door behind him. He looked… shocked. Not expectant, or aroused, or even nervous. John quirked his head.

“Don’t worry,” he said softly. “I haven’t been waiting long. And I won’t tell. I assume Mr. Holmes knows, since the note was in his handwriting, but even still, I wouldn’t talk about it. It could be our secret.”

 

Greg’s knees felt watery and weak. There, on Holmes’ desk, lounging back as if he belonged there, was fucking John Watson in his practice gear. The edges of his shorts just barely peeked out from under the oversized shirt he wore, and Greg was hit with a mental image of John wearing his own shirt, maybe to sleep in, maybe with nothing else under it—

“John, what are you doing here? You could have been locked in,” he said, trying to get a handle on his dangerously-spinning thoughts.

“I thought that was rather the point…” John slipped down off the desk, but stayed leaned against it, slumping back on his elbows. His hips jutted out obscenely, and the bulge of his erection bobbed freely under his loose-fitting clothes. The picture made Greg’s mouth water.

“Look, John, I’m not sure what you—”

“It’s okay,” John’s head was tilted back, inviting. Everything about him was bloody inviting. “We don’t really have to talk about it, Coach.”

The words broke Greg. In two long strides, he was standing in front of the boy – no, man, he had to think of John as a man – and then gathering up that small body in his arms.

“Maybe I want to talk about it,” Greg growled, forcing John to look him in the eyes.

“Actions speak louder than words, don’t they Coach?” Hazy blue eyes watched him from under thick blond eyelashes, and Greg shuddered with want. He pulled John back up onto the desk, pressed in between the vee of his open thighs, and kissed him.

The kiss was clumsy and wet, just like Greg had imagined. John opened his mouth far too quickly, and his hot breath panted over Greg’s lips. There was too much tongue and not enough pressure. It was filthy. It was gorgeous. It was exactly what Greg wanted. He grasped John’s hips with firm hands and pulled him forward until their bodies were pressed together at the pelvis. The hot length of John’s erection strained against his thin athletic shorts, and Greg groaned at the feel of it. John was enthusiastic, wriggling up to meet him, moaning into his mouth. His arms wrapped around Greg’s neck and pulled him down so that John could brush open-mouthed kisses across his stubble-covered jawline, and down his neck. The small, hot, lush mouth wound its way up the side of Greg’s neck, to his ear, tonguing the rim carefully, a practiced maneuver. Greg huffed, trying to keep from laughing.

“Bet that makes the girls all melt in your arms, doesn’t it boy?” John froze, and then pushed his lips right up against Greg’s ear.

“I don’t really know what I’m doing Coach. Will you teach me?”

The words were barely more than brushes of lips on skin, an almost-voiceless whisper that sounded vulnerable and real. It made Greg’s blood run cold. He pushed back, untangling John’s arms from around his neck. His stomach clenched in knots. John looked… confused. A little scared. Hurt.

“I… We cannot, John, we cannot do this,” Greg started.

“We just were. It wasn’t a problem. I don’t think it’s a problem,” John shifted forward, his shoeless feet dangling several inches off the floor. One of his socks had a hole in the toe. It made Greg’s chest tight.

“It’s obviously a fucking problem, John, because I can’t... If someone were to find out, or… It’s not right, you know? It’s wrong,” Greg ran a hand through his hair, pulling it a bit to help bring the lingering arousal to a halt.

“It’s not wrong, Coach.”

“Could you stop fucking calling me that? It’s Greg. My name is Greg. You’ve just had your tongue in my mouth, so I think it’s acceptable for you to just… just call me Greg.”

“Okay… Greg…” John chewed his bottom lip. “It’s not wrong, though. I’m an adult. It’s not illegal…”

“I’m your teacher, John, and your football coach. I have all sorts of power over you, and it’s very illegal. And, you’re… you’re not an adult. Not really. Seventeen is not an adult, John.” Greg crossed to the row of lab tables and pushed himself up onto one. He watched John, observed as the boy straightened his clothes and fidgeted on the desk top.

“Why’d you ask me to come, then?” John’s voice was quiet, but it seemed to echo in the stillness of the lab, to bounce off the silver taps and the Bunsen burners and the glass beakers lining the walls.

“What?” Greg’s brow furrowed.

“You asked me to come. Or, you got Mr. Holmes to ask me.” John dug the crumpled envelope out of his pocket where he’d shoved it after he’d changed. He held it out, an unspoken invitation to approach. Greg stepped forward and took it, but retreated back to his lab table immediately. John sighed.

“ _Mr. Watson, Please report to the chemistry lab on Friday afternoon immediately after school. You are to ensure the cleanliness of the lab, in reparations for_ —wait, ‘reparations?’ Who actually says words like ‘reparations’ to students?” Greg looked at John with his eyebrows comically quirked, and despite the hurt on John’s face, he managed a smile.

“Mr. Holmes is always making me, ah, reparate for something,” John watched Greg with his head tilted sideways, leaning heavily on his left shoulder.

“I don’t think that’s a word, John,” Greg felt one corner of his mouth rise, and saw a matching half-grin on John’s face. “– _for the incident last week involving the hydrochloric acid. If you choose to ignore my instructions, I will know. SH_.”

“So… I’m guessing you didn’t ask him to invite me here, then,” John muttered, letting his heels hit idly on the desk.

“Ah, no. I did not. That’s all Holmes, and he’s a right bastard for doing it. God,” Greg clenched his teeth. “I wish I could say that I don’t believe this, but honestly, I do.”

“Why?”

Greg watched John for a long moment before answering. “He knows.”

“Knows what?”

“I have… I am attracted to you, John,” he settled on.

“Not attracted enough, obviously.” John pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, settling his feet on the desk. That hole in his sock was even more glaring now, as he shivered a bit, the temperature of the room overcoming his own excitement.

“Don’t think that way, John. It’s wrong. I would lose my job, maybe go to jail. You don’t want your friends and family knowing about this…”

“I only really have one friend, you know? Lots of casual mates, I guess, but only one friend. Mike. Mike Stamford? And he already knows. My family…” Greg waited while John made up his mind. “My family’s not all that concerned about who I spend my time with. They wouldn’t care. Don’t really have time to.”

“What do you mean?” Greg kept his voice quiet, tried to keep the ache out of it, the desire to help, to fix it.

“My mum’s sick. She gets these headaches, you know? She can’t work, so my dad does it all, and they’re gone a lot. Harry’s off at uni, and she’s… well, she’s not really well, so they don’t… we don’t talk much,” John gave him a sad sort of smile, a resigned one. “I’m alright. It’s all fine. It’s just that there’s not really anyone for me to tell, anyway. And I wouldn’t, you know. I can be discreet. I’m used to it.”

Greg felt another pang in his chest. Without thinking, he had propelled himself toward the desk where John sat, small and shivering, and wrapped his arms around the boy. He buried his face in John’s soft hair, smelling the undertones of cheap shampoo and teenaged musk. He rubbed gentle circles on John’s back with his hands.

“Don’t, John,” he forced out. “Don’t let me be another thing you can’t talk about. You’re young, and talented, and smart, and handsome. You deserve more than that.” Greg pulled away and studiously ignored the shiny wetness in the corners of those blue eyes. “Let me take you home. It’s still raining, and I’ll bet you were planning to walk. Holmes can clean his own damn lab.” John gave a short nod, not looking at Greg’s face. It felt like a blow.  

Greg pressed his key code into the keypad on the door and waited for the red light to turn green. And waited. Behind him, John struggled with his trainers, pulling the laces tight. Greg punched his key code in again. The light stayed resolutely red. Greg slammed his fist into the keypad and tried again. Nothing. He groaned.

“What is it?” John’s voice was curious. The vulnerability of the few minutes before had been wiped clean, but he still shivered slightly as he stood in front of the desk.

“He’s disabled the keypad. The bastard’s locked us in.” 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many, many thanks to [Essbee](http://futuremrswatson.tumblr.com), without whom this chapter probably would not have happened, and for whom this fic is being written. All my love, dear heart.

“What do you mean, he’s locked us in? He can’t do that. Can he do that?” John pushed frantically at the door but it wouldn’t budge.

“Of course he can, the bastard practically installed the security system himself last year after the lab was broken into. He probably has an alternate key code for this door,” Greg pulled his mobile out of his pocket and scrolled until he found Sherlock’s name – or, rather, the name “Pretentious Git,” which had Sherlock’s number under it. It didn’t even ring; instead, a drawling voice message played.

“You’ve reached Sherlock Holmes. If this is about chemistry or a case, leave a message. If this is Gregory Lestrade, you’re welcome.” The tone played, and Greg slumped against the door.

“He’s not answering his phone,” he grimaced. John’s eyes were wide and apprehensive. Of course the kid was nervous; a spare twenty minutes before, Greg had been snogging his brains out on the desk, and then he had basically admitted that if something happened between them, there’d be no one to care. It wasn’t the safest place for either of them to be standing.

“So… we’re stuck here?” John flushed.

“It, ah… well, it looks like it, yeah.”

John strode to the back of the room where a secondary door led to Holmes’ private office and slammed the door open with more force than was absolutely necessary.

“Sorry,” he looked a bit shamefaced. “Thought it might be locked…”

“And that you’d just break the door down, eh?”

“Maybe,” the student shot back, grinning. “Ah… Coach? I think Mr. Holmes left you a note.”

Greg wandered into the posh git’s office and immediately saw what John had been talking about. In the middle of Sherlock Holmes’ desk sat a pile of condoms, a large bottle of lubricant, and a piece of note paper with a crudely drawn smiley face on it in yellow marker.

“God damn it,” Greg muttered, knocking over the little display. John laughed. It was a giggle, really, burbling up out of his gut and throat, dancing over the little pink tongue Greg had been sucking on ten minutes prior. Greg found his anger softening, in spite of himself. “He’s a friend, you know. Like your Mike. Just not very good at… ah, boundaries.”

“Definitely like Mike, then,” John continued to laugh. “Though I’m supposing that Mr. Holmes doesn’t point it out when your pants match your socks, and they’re both pink.”

Greg felt himself go warm all over at the thought of John in just his pink pants and matching socks, but immediately shoved the feeling away. He could think about it later. And, honestly, he would. Not now though. It couldn’t do anything but harm right now.

“No. Holmes is more the type to… well, trap me in a locked classroom all weekend with a kid.” He tried to grin. He wasn’t sure it worked.

“Oi. A kid? I’ll be eighteen soon enough, and it isn’t as if I’ll be in school next year still,” John’s exceedingly casual rebuttal was nowhere near convincing. The boy hopped up on the desk, a mirror of his earlier position, this time letting his trainer-clad feet rest in Sherlock’s chair. Greg hoped the seat would be filthy when they finally got out of here.

“Age is just a number, John. Being a man is… different. Requires more than just years to get there, and you haven’t even got the years. I get what you’re saying though. I’ll try to stop,” Greg settled on one of the high-backed wooden chairs that Holmes kept in the office for interrogating students.

“What do you think it takes?”

“Takes to… stop calling you a kid? I’ll just have to think about it harder, yeah?”

“No, not that. That doesn’t even really bother me, it just bothers you,” John said, soft and gentle and far too seriously. “I mean what you said about… what it takes to be a man. Just… what do you think it takes?”

Greg sat stunned for a moment, unsure of what to say, but John plowed on.

“My dad’s not around much, ‘cause he works all the time, and when he’s not at work he’s with my mum. He’s… well, I don’t want to be my dad. He’s a good man, but just… not the man I want to be. He’s so angry, you know? And I know it’s because he’s hurting, and he’s scared, but still. I can’t live that way.” His deep blue eyes were trained on his lap, on the little shorts he’d put on so hopefully in the loo stall.

“I wanted to be a doctor, because I want to help. But… well, my parents don’t have the money to send me to uni like they did Harry, and I don’t know that I’d want them to worry about it anyway. I think… well, I may join the Army. Seems like the best way to get where I want, you know? My dad doesn’t like the idea, and my mum’s afraid. I don’t really know what to do, or who to ask for advice,” he heaved a deep breath before continuing, “But maybe you could just tell me what you think it takes to be a man, and that would help. I could try to just be that.”

Dark blue eyes bore into brown ones, and Greg felt his mouth go dry at the quiet steel in John’s voice.

“Why would you ask me, John?”

“Because, Coach… you’re the best man I know.” John turned toward him and smiled, a brilliant little thing that made Greg’s breath catch and his heart drop into his stomach.

“I’m not, John,” Greg felt sick. Queasy. Like guilt and lying and pain. “I’m really, really not.”

“If I were older, and you were… well, you know, looking. What would you want me to be? What kind of man would you like to see, when you looked at me?” His eyes were bright and trusting, far too trusting and naïve for a boy his age. Still, something inside Greg shuddered at that infinite faith from a young man with very little else to give. So he answered.

“I’d want you to be honorable. And courageous. To have the ability to make tough decisions when they’re the right ones. To trust your gut. To be honest and loyal. Those are all important things for a man to be, and I… fail at them. But I try,” Greg lifted his feet up onto the desk, nudging John’s hip with the toe of one shoe affectionately. “I’d want you to be able to appreciate the beauty in exceptional things, and express that, because I’m shite at it and I hope you won’t be. I want you to be strong and stand up for yourself and take care of others. But mostly I’d want to see a happy man.”

“Are you a happy man, Greg?”

“I was once,” Greg smiled at his shoes, at the slight jut of John’s hip. “Maybe I will be again someday. Who knows?”

The silence stretched more comfortably now, the confidences of older man to younger like a bridge between them. John leaned unconsciously into the press of Greg’s foot against his side, and rested his chin on his hands, elbows on knees. He looked up toward the small windows that lined the very top of the walls, far above their heads.

“Those are ventilation windows, right? They pop outward, in case we need to vent fumes from the building. I don’t think they can be opened from the outside, but if we pushed hard enough…”

Greg eyed them, and nodded, seeing what John was implying. “I could get through, if I stood on a table and jumped. You’d probably need a bit of a boost. It’s a long way down…”

John shot him a brilliant grin. “I can handle a bit of a rough and tumble, Coach.” Seconds after the words fell out of his mouth, John blanched, realizing the implications, but Greg just laughed.

“I’m sure you can, John. Help me push this desk up under the window?”

Together, they moved Holmes’ enormous desk to the wall. John’s muscles strained as they pushed, and one of the shoulders of his t-shirt slipped down, revealing far too much golden skin. Greg averted his eyes. _Fuck._ This was much harder, now. Kissing had been one thing, but the talking had made everything seem much more…intimate. The older man huffed a breath as they finished pushing, and put an arm out to keep John from clambering up first.

“Just let me test it, yeah? Don’t want you falling.”

 Greg climbed up, testing the strength of the legs by bouncing on it tentatively. It has solid and steady under his feet and he breathed a small sigh of relief. Maybe they actually would get out of here before anyone figured out what had happened. And then he’d kill the lanky bastard that locked them in. _There’s the weekend sorted._ He offered a hand down to John.

“I think she’ll hold, but be careful, yeah? I’d prefer not to end up in a heap on the floor,” Greg heaved him up, and quirked a half-smile at John’s resulting blush. The young man was extremely easy to embarrass. Greg did his best to quell the warmth that rushed to his groin at the sight of John’s pink cheeks.

John reached up, trying to get at the window latch, but he was several inches too short, even with the table under him. He huffed, frustrated.

“The window sill is deep. Deep enough to sit on, probably. If you can push me up there, I can get my legs through first, and then help you climb up,” John took a deep breath before adding, “I just, ya know, need a boost.”

Moments later, with his arms wrapped around John’s thighs, and that delectable arse perched precariously on his shoulder, Greg was fully aware of what an awful idea it was. It was such an awful idea that his cock thought it was a brilliant idea, and he had to take deep, soothing breaths to even stand up straight. John wriggled and pushed, his thigh muscles tensing under Greg’s hands, his back muscles straining under the drape of his too-large shirt.

“Almost – ah, almost got it,” he heaved, chewing on his lower lip. “One big push and I’ll be there.” Greg quickly retrieved his mind from the gutter and pushed up, one hand steadying the front of John’s legs while the other supported his arse. Finally, John slid up into the deep sill of the window, scrunching his body into a tight ball. He grinned down at Greg’s face as he elbowed the small ventilation window open.

“It’ll be a tight squeeze, but we should both be able to make it,” he smiled, maneuvering his feet outside and laying down on his belly. “Be glad we’re both quite fit, yeah?” He reached down to grab at Greg’s hands, and together they levered John’s body out of the window, and Greg’s onto the sill.

When Greg finally reached the ground outside the school, with a bone-jarring thud, John had already started off toward the road. He was caked in mud and rain ran in diverting rivulets down his bare thighs, over his exposed shoulders. Greg jogged to catch up with him, shielding his eyes from the pelting rain with one hand.

“John, let me give you a ride home. It’s miserable out here and you’ll be soaked.”  
“Already soaked, Coach,” John shot him a tight smile. “Besides, I’d get mud in your car. Slipped in a puddle over there. Don’t want to make a mess.”

“John, it’s alright,” Greg grabbed his arm and spun the student around, stopping his forward progress. “I don’t mind.”

“I said I don’t want to make a mess, Coach,” he ground out, patient but pained. “You would be the one that would have to deal with it, and I don’t want to do that to you, so if there’s nothing else, I don’t live far, and I’d rather just walk.”

“John, you’re not listening. I don’t mind the mess. I don’t want you to get hurt, or, or sick. So just shut up and get in my car.” Greg dragged him back toward the faculty car park without much difficulty; John didn’t especially propel himself in that direction, but he didn’t fight either, submitting easily to Greg’s direction. Greg tried very hard, again, not to think about that. Again, he mostly failed.

 

John’s mind whirred the whole of the six mile drive to his house. His clothes stuck to his skin and his hair shellacked to his scalp, but he didn’t notice anything except the muck drying on his hands, knotted up in the overly-long tail of his shirt. The hum of the engine under his seat paled in comparison to the deafening silence that sat heavily between them. Coach Lestrade – no, Greg – no, Lestrade, gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, and tension roiled in the air. John whispered the directions to his house and studiously did not turn his head toward Coach Lestrade.

_He likes me. He does. Just, not enough to shag me, I guess. Or too much to shag me? I don’t know. Doesn’t particularly matter though, does it? Fuck. Thank Christ Mike’s gone for the weekend or I’d be moping in his sitting room within the hour._

The remembered feeling of the man’s hands on his waist, his thighs, his arse, seemed burned into John’s skin and bones, a painful reminder that _this_ was apparently what was best for him: wanting, longing, unmet and unrewarded. When John’s house finally slid into view, he was out of the car before it even stopped. He hopped onto the pavement in one graceless heave, and was pressing the door closed when Coach Lestrade’s voice stopped him.

“John. John, wait. Didn’t you have a bag with you earlier?”

John stopped.

He stared abysmally at the rain-soaked front step.

He swallowed once, twice. Squeezed his eyes closed.

“…Oh for fuck’s sake,” he groaned. Because yes, of course he had a bag. And it was still locked in the lab.

With his keys in it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize very sincerely for the amount of time it took me to get this posted. This was a very difficult chapter for me to get out. Don't worry though; the end draws nigh, and there is sex in it. :D


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to update this. Between two Winterlock fics, the beginning of school, and several sick days, it definitely was put on the back burner. Have some porn, and please forgive me.

Greg sat discontentedly in his chair, looking at the dreary eggshell wall as his trousers dripped water steadily into a puddle on the hardwoods. He raked a hand through his hair, grimacing at the slip of cold rainwater down the back of his neck, under his soaked collar. He should get up. He knew that. He should get up, get changed, take off his soaked socks and put on dry things, order takeaway and turn on the telly, just like every other Friday night.

But he didn’t.

Instead, over and over in his head he went over the conversation he’d had before John had sent him away.

_“It’s fine, Coach,” John said. “My sister will be here soon anyway.”_

_He looked so small in his sodden, oversized clothes, and he shivered in the biting November wind._

_“Please, let me give you a ride somewhere else, I don’t want to–”_

_“There’s nowhere else, Coach. Please, just go? Harry will be here soon. It’ll all be fine.”_

Nowhere else to go, for John, and nothing else to do, for Greg, and wasn’t that just always the way of it? So Greg sat in his chair, soggy and sulking, watching the minutes tick by on a clock on the wall.

“He’s quite popular, Watson,” Greg mused out loud. “It isn’t as if he has no friends. Maybe no close ones, like Mike, but he has other friends, other people he sees. Maybe he’d go to one of them…”

For a split second, Greg’s brain was filled with images of a soaked and shivering John Watson on another boy’s doorstep, some nameless faceless rugby player who was bigger, stronger than him. He pictured John trying to warm up without any dry clothes… trying to explain the fact that he wasn’t wearing pants and that his shirt was longer than his shorts. He pictured the other boy’s hands on him, chafing his skin with a towel to warm him, holding him close to share body heat, stripping him out of his – Greg shuddered, shaking the idea out of his head along with the consuming jealousy it had sparked.

Not another boy, then… maybe a neighbor… Greg visualized John’s small, slightly run-down neighborhood full of little houses with somewhat neglected gardens. Maybe a nice, female neighbor… an older woman, even. Greg imagined the matronly school secretary, Mrs. Hudson, offering John a hot cup of tea and a plate of biscuits with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. The mental image was nice enough, though slightly… disappointing.

Greg’s mind helpfully supplied an alternative: John curled up on his own couch, wearing an old t-shirt and a pair of Greg’s pajama trousers, drawstring pulled excessively tight around his trim waist. John eating takeaway with Greg, laughing at something ridiculous on the telly, his blue eyes sparkling with mischief and camaraderie. Something deep in Greg’s chest ached, a pang he hadn’t felt in years, something more than lust. Greg winced. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t decent, having those thoughts about a kid, and wanting him so badly, but this was maybe worse: thinking of him like that, easy and carefree in Greg’s flat, as if he was a regular houseguest, a suitable companion for lonely weekends, a regular installment on Greg’s sofa. He ran his hand through his hair again, and his fingers itched for the comforting length of a cigarette. He took a deep breath. Then another. Then a third.

If he went back out there now, there wasn’t going to be any turning back. He’d held on through months of classes and after school practices, through a locked lab and a lube tableau that would have made porn stars blush, through desperate fumbling kisses and the excited press of John’s exquisite young body against his own. He’d done the honorable thing. He’d said no. And if he went back out into that storm, there was no way he’d have the strength to keep saying it.

“Oh, sod it all to hell,” he muttered, bounding up out of his damp chair and back out into the rain.

  


John huddled under the very inadequate lee of his roof. He pressed his body tightly into the corner of the small porch, but the steady drip of water poured over his head, face, and neck. He shivered violently, his practice clothes no match for the cold air even without the addition of being soaked through.

“Fucking hell, Watson,” he muttered through chattering teeth. “Should have had him take you to Mike’s. His mom would have let you in, and you could at least be warm and dry right now.”

He flexed his fingers, trying to encourage circulation, but the tips of them were quickly losing their ruddy color in the chilled air. He shuddered. It shouldn’t get too much colder tonight, only mid-November, but the prospect of staying outside through the night in naught but his wet clothes made John’s heart plummet. He’d wait another hour for Harry, and then he’d have to break a window, no matter how angry his dad would be.

The cut of headlights through the driving rain caught John’s attention. Maybe it was a neighbor? He didn’t know the family that had moved in on his left just a few months before, but old Mr. Beals on the right may have a spare key hanging around somewhere –

John swallowed hard as the car stopped in front of his house and an achingly familiar from shot out of the driver’s seat.

“Coach Lestrade, you should –” John was cut off by the fierce look in the older man’s eyes as he wrapped his own coat around John’s shaking shoulders.

“For fuck’s sake, Watson, get in my car. You’re coming home with me.”

John ducked into the passenger’s seat, relieved to be in the warmth and thrumming with nervous tension. Greg sat heavily in the driver’s side, water running down his face and neck, and shot John a confident grin.

“Your sister isn’t coming, is she John?”

“Ah. No. Not as such, no,” John mumbled. His lips felt oddly disconnected from his face, and the blast of heat from the air vents made his skin tingle where it hit.

“Was she ever coming?”

“Um. No?”

“Right then. When will your parents be home?” Greg pulled away from the kerb, extremely aware of the picture they made, both soaked through and John wrapped up in his coat.

“Sunday. They won’t be home until Sunday,” John smoothed a trembling hand over his face, trying to wipe away the rivulets of rain that ran into his eyes, down his nose, over his mouth.

“Good. Then we’ve got until Sunday to figure this out,” Greg squeezed his knee with a gentle hand, and the sensation of skin on smooth-slick-skin made both of them catch their breath. _We have until Sunday_.

  


John looked around Greg’s little flat with wide eyes. It wasn’t anything special: a few pieces of threadbare furniture he’d had forever, a big flat screen, and a truly abhorrent green kitchen that Greg kept meaning to ask the landlord about painting. Still, it was his, his alone, and Greg was proud of it in a way. He’d floundered a bit, after Renee had broken off their engagement – _poor sod that P.E. teacher was she ran off with, too_ – but this was Greg’s. He’d built his own life here, and he was happy, at least, to have a warm dry spot for John to stay out of the storm. John neatly hung Greg’s coat over a chair to dry and then stood awkwardly in the sitting room, still wracked with shivers.

“The shower’s in there,” Greg pointed to the small, neat bathroom off the hall. “I’ll get you some dry things, you go try to get warmed up. D’you like curry?” John grinned in response and ran a hand through his wet hair.

“Ah, were you actually planning on eating tonight, then? Food, I mean.”

Despite himself, Greg laughed. “Yes, you tart, now get your arse in the shower before you make yourself sick.”

“You know you don’t actually get sick from exposure to cold, right?” John pulled his shirt up over his head, giggling. It fell to the floor with a slick, squidgy sound. Greg tried to hold back his gasp, but the air in his chest constricted painfully, and John looked at him like he knew what that meant.

The skin of John’s torso was pale with cold, so unlike his normal rosy tan. He chafed his own skin guilelessly, trying to bring the blood back to the surface, rubbing clumsy palms over his arms, his shoulders, his chest, down his ribs. Greg followed the movement with his eyes, greedy for more. John’s expression grew bolder as he drew his hands down his breastbone, over one peaked nipple, down the firm plane of his stomach. He teased his fingers at one hip, drawing slow circles for Greg to worship with his gaze. He clenched his jaw tight to try and still the chatter of his teeth, attempting to quell his shivering through force of will alone. Unfortunately, John Watson had never been very good at mind-over-matter. His fingers shook as they traveled over the top of his iliac crest, and he clenched his left hand repeatedly, trying to hide it. It didn’t work.

“Get your arse in the shower, John,” Greg laughed, rubbing a hand over his face with chagrin. John wiggled a bit as he walked, his slick, shiny athletic shorts sliding down his narrow hips. He stopped in the doorway to the bathroom and peeled off his socks, one at a time, putting on a show without ever looking Greg in the face. Greg couldn’t help but chuckle, tried to hide it by clearing his throat. “Hey John, catch?”

John looked up just as a fluffy towel hit him in the face.

“I’m not touching you until you’re warm. Hop to it.”

  


John leaned against the cool tiles of the shower, scalding hot water causing pin-pricks of pain all over his cold skin. For all he had tried to fight it, Greg was right: he was much too cold to do anything at the moment except stand under the steamy rush pouring from the showerhead, and imagine. But, boy, could he imagine.

_Greg in the shower with him. Greg, naked, in the shower with him. Greg, pushing him up against the wall, grinding his big hard cock into the cleft of John’s arse. Greg, slipping his coaching whistle around John’s neck and using it as a leash, bringing John to his knees. Greg’s cock in his mouth, filling him up, making him pant._

The blood rushing under John’s skin brought a healthy flush back to his limbs and face. He grabbed Greg’s soap and poured it hurriedly into one steady palm. The thick liquid gel slid smoothly over his skin, drenching him in the fresh, clean scent that Greg always wore. He worked it over his arms, down his chest and stomach, over his legs, studiously avoiding the place where he wanted to be touched the most. When he was covered in lather, John poured out another handful of the soap, and carefully reached around, probing the cleft of his arse.

He’d touched himself there before, occasionally, but never like this, never with so much intent. The suds of the soap rolled down his cleft, over the pucker of his hole, and the sensation made him shiver with anticipation. Carefully, slowly, he worked one slick finger into himself, pushing in despite the discomfort. He swirled it around, unsure of what to do, how to prepare himself for Greg. It felt… strange. An intrusion in a space that wasn’t meant for it, but he kept going, pushing and pressing along the soft, hot insides of his arse. Quite by accident, his short, thick finger passed over an especially sensitive spot, surprising a loud, breathless moan out of his mouth before he could stop it.

 

Greg listened intently to the sound of the shower being turned on. There was a trick to getting it warm, but he’d known better than to invite himself into that bathroom at the moment. He wanted to take his time with John, to make it special, important. He’d known, he’d known as soon as he walked back out that door, that this was what it would all come to. It was terrible, really. Completely immoral, unethical, not him. And yet, obviously a part of him was okay with it. Well… Most of him was okay with it. Hell, all of him was okay with it except a small voice in the back of his head that mostly just said, “You could lose your job!”

He gathered up John’s sopping clothes and wrung them out with care over the sink. His shirt, obviously old and handed-down, twisted easily in Greg’s hands. The fabric was so thin that, wet as it was, it was nearly transparent. Greg smiled at the sense memory of it under his fingers as he kissed John on the desk, twining the soft fabric between his fingers, watching it slip down over John’s shoulder. Next he wrung out the socks, the tall, over-the-knee socks he’d seen John wear so many times at practice. The red stripes blurred at the edge, and red ink ran a bit, staining Greg’s hands. Underneath, the pink of the actual material began to show through the marker. His heart hammered in his chest as he thought of John carefully, cautiously covering up the pink of his socks with a red marker; of John, carefully, cautiously flirting with girls even though everyone was aware he also liked boys; of John, carefully, cautiously existing in the margins with an ill mother and an angry father and a careless older sister. He dropped the wet sock into the sink and leaned over it for a moment, breathing through the sudden anger that overwhelmed him, the desire to make it right.

That was why Greg had become a teacher to begin with: a desire to do good, to make things right after a bit of misspent youth. He’d not been unlike John half a lifetime ago: cocksure and potently masculine, confident but inexperienced, willing to learn, but lacking opportunity. He’d taken chances when and where he could, ignored the wisdom of those who would have protected him from himself, done things he wished he hadn’t. But, then, it had all been necessary, really. The advantage of time was knowing that you were who you were because you did the things you did, and despite the apparent holes in Greg’s morality, he liked the man he was. The scuffed steel of the sink offered a blurry, featureless reflection of him, a man that he wouldn’t recognize at 17, probably a man he wouldn’t recognize at 51, but a man who was wholly satisfied with himself at 34.

Was this… thing… attraction… dalliance, between John and him, was this one of those necessary mistakes? Not for him, maybe. For himself, he recognized it for what it was: a twisted sort of affection and lust for someone whole and neat, nostalgic and desirable, fixable in a way that Renee had not been, that before her, Mark had not been, that before him, Greg had himself not been. But for John, would this be one of those moments he looked back on in seventeen years and said, “This was a mistake I would make again and again”? His gut felt like that shirt, wrung out, but Greg nodded and steeled himself. He couldn’t fix John’s life, not really, only John could do that. But he could give John something to work from. He could give him something to work toward. And he could give him these two days, apart from everything else, a mistake worth making for the both of them.

Mind made up, Greg abandoned the wet clothes in the sink and started down the hall toward his bedroom, intending to find John something warm and dry to wrap up in until after they’d talked. A sound from the bathroom arrested his progress, stopping him still just outside. It was difficult to make out over the rush of water and through the glass-and-wood barriers of the doors, but after a moment of careful listening, the sound was unmistakable.

“ _Greg… ungh… Greg, ah, please…_ ”

Greg threw open the door and was immediately faced with the image of warm, wet, sudsy, tanned, completely bare John Watson pressed against the cool tile of the shower with two fingers in his arse, panting Greg’s name, as viewed through translucent shower liner.

“Oh, Christ, Greg, fuck, thank you, ugh, can’t…” John pumped his fingers in and out almost frantically, not even stretching, just seeking something he couldn’t quite reach. He banged his forehead none-too-gently against the tile, frustration rolling off of him in waves.

“Whoa, whoa, John, hey,” Greg rushed forward, pulling open the flimsy curtain and tugging the boy’s hands away from his body. John groaned, his breath coming in harsh pants. Greg aimed the shower head to get the suds off of John’s body, running his hands over warm, flushed skin. Once John was free of soap, Greg pulled off his shirt and trousers, and sat in just his slightly damp pants on the edge of the tub, his legs bracketing John’s on the slick floor. He turned the water off and shot John a grin.

“Going to run out of hot water if you keep going like that.”

“What’re you… uh…” John trailed off, taking a good look at Greg’s physique, bordering on middle-aged but still strong and broad and fit from coaching. He chewed his lips, eyes going a bit glassy as he took in the smattering of slightly greying hair on Greg’s chest, his sculpted shoulders, the long, strong lines of his legs. Greg smiled and let him look for a moment, before placing his hands on John’s hips.

“Turn around, John,” he instructed, voice low and full of heat. John turned slowly, very aware of Greg’s limbs hemming him in. He rested his forehead and his hands on the tiles, back to Greg. One finger traced the line of the grout as Greg spoke to him, and he let the older man’s voice wash over him in calming waves, pulling him back from the frustrated edge he’d driven himself to.

“Not used to this are you?” Greg asked, slicking his hands up over the skin of John’s arse. He spread John’s flesh carefully, eyeing the swollen pucker of his entrance. John shivered under his hands, no longer cold, but incredibly sensitive. “Has anyone touched you here before?” John shook his head hesitantly, as if not certain he ought to tell the truth. “I don’t mind being the first, John. Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop, unless you want me to. You can be honest with me.” Greg ghosted a hot breath over John’s hidden places, making the blond arch toward him, arse pressing close to the heat of Greg’s mouth. Greg indulged him, smiling, licking a broad swath up the cleft with care.

“AH! Coa- I, ah. Greg. Greg. _Greg_. What are you. Wha-”

Greg circled John’s hole with his tongue, dipping down inside with gentle prods before pulling back and licking slickly around it again. His fingers clenched on the flesh of John’s arse and hips, and somewhere in the back of Greg’s mind he knew he should pull away, should make sure John was alright, should talk this through.

He didn’t.

Instead, he buried his face further in John’s arse, reducing the boy to a mess of frazzled nerve endings and spit-slick skin. He buried his tongue as deep in John’s arse as he could get it, fucking him with the pointed tip and wriggling the agile muscle inside. Above him, John’s moaning got louder and more desperate, but he clung to the wall, never moving a hand down to his cock. Greg slapped his arse with one broad hand, revelling in the sting of it, and John groaned, trying to rut back against Greg’s face and forward against the wall at the same time.

“Please… ah… Greg, please…” he whined, rocking back and forth but still not touching himself. Greg obliged, wrapping a hand around John’s cock and giving him slow, easy strokes. All at once, John’s knees folded, sending him sprawling back into the shield of Greg’s body.

“Whoa, hold on there,” Greg laughed, settling John on the floor of the tub between his own knees. He leaned over the young man, cradling John with his legs and wrapping his arms around that lovely body. Greg pressed kisses into John’s neck, licked up the shell of his ear, murmured soft words against it: “I want you to come, John. I want to make you come right here, and then I want to take you to bed and make you come again. Do you think you can do that for me?”

John nodded frantically, apparently speechless, as Greg took hold of his cock again and started working him in earnest. John’s head fell back and rested against Greg’s thigh. The pleasure of his unintentional touches was far too much for Greg, and he slid off the side of the tub to get more. He sat on the cool ceramic, legs on either side of John’s, and pulled the boy back against his chest, let him rest in the circle of his arms. John’s eyes were squeezed tightly closed, but at Greg’s insistence, he opened them again, azure irises thinned out around dilated pupils. Greg set a rough, fast rhythm with one hand and held John tight with the other, toying with the soft skin of his abdomen, his nipples, up to his throat. John rocked back against Greg, feeling his erection in the small of his back, hot and hard. As John grew more frantic, Greg moved quicker, twisting his wrist and pulling with intent. John’s hips stuttered with pleasure and he gasped once, locking eyes with Greg, before he came, gushing over Greg’s hand.

“There now, that was good wasn’t it?” Greg smiled, wiping the come off onto the skin of John’s stomach. It stood out, so pearly white against John’s tanned skin, in a way that made Greg’s cock ache, completely ignored and hanging heavily between his legs. John shivered with the aftershocks of his orgasm, burying his face in the bicep Greg had around him, trying to hide. “Oi, none of that. No hiding. Not from me.”

Greg reached forward to start the water again wrapped his arms around John’s waist, gentling him like an animal. “Let’s get you cleaned up and dry, what do you say?”

John shook his head as if clearing cobwebs and turned so that Greg could see his face. His expressive features gave away all of his feelings: bliss and excitement and nerves and fear and hope and disappointment, all at once. “And what then?” Unasked: _are you done with me? Is this it? Or will you let me stay?_

“And then we get dirty again. Together. What do you say?”

John grinned and turned in the circle of Greg’s limbs, draping himself comfortably over the older man’s body. He pressed a wet, clumsy, searching kiss to Greg’s mouth before pulling back and smirking. “Sounds good, Coach.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many, many, many thanks to [Essbee](http://futuremrswatson.tumblr.com), and [The Antidiogenes Club](http://antidiogenes.tumblr.com), without whom this chapter probably would not have been written. 
> 
> Also, special thanks to [Provocatrixxx](http://provocatrixxx.tumblr.com) for her assistance with enlistment information. She gave me incredibly sound insight and resources; anything I've botched up from there is my own fault.

“Come on, let’s get up and out,” Greg said after long moments of slow, languid kissing. John wriggled on top of him, trying to shake his head and instead shaking everything else. Greg laughed into his mouth. “Yes, come on, up. I’m getting to be an old man, can’t be down here in the tub for this long. Besides…” he gestured to the thoroughly soaked boxer briefs clinging to his skin, the only barrier between their bodies. “I’d really rather get rid of these, if you don’t mind.”

John’s eyebrows shot up and he scrambled backward. He flinched as he moved directly into the spray of the shower.

“Yikes. Water’s getting cold too,” he hurried to turn the knobs off.

“Does that after a while, yeah,” Greg nodded, sliding the pants off over his thighs.

John stood there, eyes riveted to Greg’s body. His skin called out to John’s fingertips, worn and tough and slightly lined, smooth and dark and nicely furred. It seemed a travesty that he hadn’t kissed all that skin yet, and John told him so.

“Relax,” Greg said, smiling as he stood. His erection stuck out proudly from his body, long and thick and slightly curved. He didn’t attempt to cover himself, just gestured out of the shower easily. “Let’s get dry, and you’ll get your chance.”

Standing on the bathmat, John wrapped himself up in a towel and watched as Greg climbed out of the tub. His shivering had calmed completely, but his skin felt oversensitive, buzzing with anticipation. He leaned back against the vanity, trying to keep his expression cool and casual.

“Nervous?” Greg laughed.

Damn. Apparently that hadn’t worked.

“Not at all,” John lied through his teeth. “Just ready. Just really, really ready.”

“Don’t worry,” Greg sauntered close, towel wrapped loosely around his hips. “It’s normal to be a bit jumpy about the first time.” Greg leaned down and dragged his nose carefully up the side of John’s neck, sending goosebumps down his arms. Greg’s hot breath panted out over his damp skin and John moaned softly, a bare, breathy sound. “If it helps, I’m not nervous at all.”

“No?” John arched an eyebrow as well as he could. Despite having come a spare ten minutes beforehand, he was already half hard again from the anticipation. Well, the anticipation and the feel of Greg’s stubbled cheek against his ear, his jaw, over his adam’s apple. “Aren’t you the one with more to lose in this situation?”

“I prefer to think about what we stand to gain here, John,” Greg grinned, reaching down to palm John’s cock with one large, tanned hand. John’s hips stuttered forward minutely without his permission, and Greg’s breath caught in his chest for just a moment. “Do you want to come to bed with me, John Watson?”

“Yes, Christ, fuck me,” John said, reaching up to pull Greg down into a kiss. Greg hovered, just for a moment, their lips a hair’s breadth apart.

“Then what do I have to lose?”

  


Greg wrestled John down on his front on the bed. His slick young body slid teasingly under Greg’s own, and Greg shuddered at the slow, sweet drag of damp skin.

“Christ, you’re a menace, Watson.” He mouthed at the smooth, strong spread of John’s shoulders while John rutted gently against the blankets. Greg caught John’s hips, his large hands covering parts of his arse and thighs as he held John still, just high enough off of the blankets to make them completely useless. “Nuh-uh. I know you’re seventeen and all, but even you would have trouble coming a third time that quickly.” John giggled.

“Don’t want to wait, huh?”

“Been waiting months,” Greg kissed messily down John’s back, laving his tongue over the sharp outline of John’s shoulderblades, the strong indents of his spine, the soft, golden skin over the small. As Greg reached his tailbone, John bucked up once, slowly, just enough to dislodge him, and flipped over onto his back.

“Months, huh?” John grinned, wrapping one slim, smooth leg around Greg’s waist to pull him down. “How many months?”

“Mmmm, hard to say,” Greg settled over him on his elbows, bestowing kisses on his neck and ears. “How many months have you been wearing those goddamn football shorts?”

John flushed brightly, the rush of colour spreading rapidly down his chest, and Greg delighted at the sight of it. He let one hand drag gently through the sun-and-straw hair that clung damp to John’s forehead and pressed a deep, enveloping kiss to his mouth.

“I’d wait longer, if you wanted me to,” he said when he pulled away. “But I don’t think you want me to.” Greg lowered his body between John’s legs, skin on skin with nothing in between. John gasped underneath him, then shook his head.

“I’ve been waiting too long too,” John breathed, pressing frenzied kisses all around Greg’s mouth as he rutted up against Greg’s body. Their height difference was arousingly apparent now; John’s erection dragged enticingly along Greg’s abdomen, while the head of Greg’s cock nudged perfectly at John’s perineum. Greg rocked, slowly, letting his cock slide haltingly over the moist skin of John’s bollocks, back, to the cleft of his arse. John’s hips rutted up faster, searching for relief against Greg’s skin, until Greg reached down to pin them with one hand.

“Not that way,” he growled, nipping at John’s jaw. Greg peeled himself up away from John’s skin, smiling at the bereft noises he made. John whined and pulled him in tighter with the leg around his waist, but Greg pulled away, sitting back on his heels.  “This time we take it slow. Make it last.”

“Scoot up, would you?” he pushed awkwardly a John’s hips, encouraging the younger man to slide up the mattress. John rested his head on one lumpy pillow and grinned down at him.

“Did you need the other for my arse?” he asked, waggling one eyebrow and holding out the besmirched bedding. Greg took the pillow and whapped John over the face with it.

“Been doing some research, have we?”

“Well, you know, wanted to make sure I did my homework, Coach…” John grinned through his blush, throwing a saucy wink at Greg.

“Well then,” Greg sat back, admiring the clean lines of John’s body, the compact musculature of that athletic frame, the rosy flush over lightly browned skin. “Show us what you’ve learned.”

John reached down with one steady hand to grasp his cock. He pulled in long, slow strokes, sliding the foreskin up over the head and back down with smooth twists of his wrist. His other hand smoothed over his chest, stopping at his pectoral to tease a hardened nipple, and then further down his abdomen. He lifted his legs up and to the side, spreading himself wide before Greg’s eyes. His hips stuttered as his thumb slid over the head of his cock, smearing the pearlescent fluid there over the soft, hot skin. Greg’s mouth watered watching the show, sweet and filthy and so incredibly hot. Moaning, John pulled his hand away from his cock and let it slip down between his legs. He tugged his bollocks for a moment before sliding two short, questing fingers down further, circling the softened pink pucker of his hole.

Greg’s breath caught in his chest as he watched those fingertips slip over delicate skin, press so slightly in and back out, over and over. Above him, John groaned with the growing tension of his own teasing and Greg’s eyes on his body, but for long moments, neither of them broke the spell: John teased, Greg watched, gasping breaths held. Then, in a flurry of movement, Greg grasped John’s calves and pushed, pushed them back and up, lifting John’s hips off the bed.

“You’re right. You need a pillow under that arse,” Greg grinned, all teeth, as he dragged the smooth, cool cotton down John’s body, sliding it up under his hips. John watched with wide, dark, stormy blue eyes as Greg kissed delicately up his calf, tongue caressing the softly-furred skin, tracing the outline of tensed muscles. He sucked a harsh kiss behind John’s knee and then pushed his thigh up until that knee came close to John’s shoulder, flexing his lithe young body nearly in half. “You’ll want to be plenty comfortable for this, since we’re going to be here awhile.”

John grinned up at him and puckered his lips absurdly. Greg leaned over, putting his weight on the backs of John’s thighs, letting his body slide over John’s, and gave him one loud, smacking kiss. John leaned up, trying to get more, but Greg retreated, sliding off the bed to fumble through the nightstand. Bottle of lube and condoms produced, he crawled back over John’s body, placing sweet, sucking kisses on exposed skin.

The lube was cool and thick as it flowed over his fingers, dripping freely onto John’s arse. John hissed as one of Greg’s long fingers probed gently at his hole, pushing in just slightly before pulling back out to massage the muscle. The slight stretch felt good - no, amazing -  after so much teasing, and he rocked his hips forward, looking for more.

“Let me,” Greg growled, watching avidly as his middle finger slid in to the first knuckle. John ground up against the hand restraining his hips but Greg didn’t budge, moving his finger in minute increments in and out, caressing the smooth flesh. Carefully, hand dripping with lube, he pushed his finger in to the second knuckle, then all the way, and John moaned and writhed exquisitely under him, guileless and beautiful.

A second finger went in with much less teasing, and John clenched needily around it. The stretch of skin around Greg’s probing digits burned, clearing some of the frantic arousal from John’s mind, but the fact remained: Greg was inside him, was going to be completely buried in him, surrounded by him, and it sent shivers up John’s spine. He sucked in harsh lungfuls of air through his mouth, tongue drying as Greg pumped two long fingers in and out of his body. His limbs felt tense, tightly spooled under the slow pleasure Greg was drawing out of him, but also on the edge of something far greater, something he’d felt on flickers of in the shower.

“Greg, ah - just… ugh…” he gasped out, legs trembling in the air. Greg smiled down at him, eyes dark and greedy. He pushed his fingers in harder, sending spirals of arousal over John’s skin, and then crooked his fingertips, pressing up and slightly to the side, precise and brilliant and completely breathtaking. Fireworks danced behind John’s eyelids as pleasure washed over him. Ragged groans tumbled out from between his lips as Greg pushed in a third finger, dancing those clever digits over his prostate before spreading them, and him. They slid in and out easily now, filling him over and over but not enough.

“Please, Greg, please,” the words slipped out between huffs of breath. “Please fuck me. Please just… just fuck me now.”

The words seemed to melt over Greg’s skin, filling him with a burning drive, impatient and destructive. He continued working his fingers quickly in and out of John’s arse, and with the other hand and his teeth, ripped open the condom package. The cool latex rolled easily over his swollen cock. He was so hard it ached, something deep inside him yearning to fuck and take and own. He pulled in deep, desperate breaths through his nose as John clenched involuntarily around his hand, pulling him in deeper. Slowly, he pulled his hand out, watching as John’s hole clenched on air for just a moment. The small, desperate sounds he made as his hips rolled fruitlessly on the pillow made Greg’s mouth dry, his hands sweat, his own hips stutter, seeking relief.

John wrapped his legs around Greg’s waist, trying to pull the man in, in, _in_. Greg smiled at him, beatific and hungry.

“Are you going to make me wait some more, or are you going to fuck me already?” John ground out, pushing up on his elbows. His cock stood proudly erect and Greg reached out to give him one long stroke. John’s head lolled back on his shoulders, a guttural cry forced from his mouth. He spread his legs wide, hoping it looked inviting, and his abdomen burned with the effort of keeping himself there, displayed for Greg’s taking.

Greg positioned himself carefully, the head of his cock resting just at John’s entrance, prodding the softened circle gently. He poured clear, viscous lube down over himself and John, using the bottle to draw slick trails on John’s skin.

“Are you sure you want this, John?” he asked, holding himself back with every bit of will he possessed. John growled and captured Greg’s waist with his legs, pulling him forward. Before he could catch himself, the head of his cock was distending John’s hole, and a harsh shout rang from John’s mouth.

“AH! Ah. Ahhh. Greg. Ah, Greg…” John panted, eyes squeezed tightly closed. Greg held himself still and steady, waiting for the sharp look of pain to ease from John’s features. He fondled John’s bollocks with one hand, careful, playful, all the things he’d hoped this could be.

“Deep breaths, baby, there you go,” he murmured, stroking up to John’s softened cock. He slid his hand up to toy with the head while his own lie buried in the tight velvet heat of John’s arse. “I know it’s tough. You just have to relax for me, and it will feel better. I promise it will feel better.”

“It’s like… ugh… Christ… stabbing. It fucking hurts,” John’s teeth grit together between each word as he tried to overcome the pain. Greg pulled back, easing out of the clasp of his body, but John panicked. He tightened his legs around Greg again, pulling him back into that intoxicating heat, wincing all the while. “No. No, you’re not leaving. Just let me… give me a minute…”

Greg smoothed his hand over John’s sweaty face, pushing the hair away from his forehead. “Not going anywhere, babe. Just going to go get something that might make this a bit easier, yeah? Will you let me do that?”

“You’re going to fuck me though,” John said, not a shred of doubt in his voice but something uncertain in his eyes. “You are. We’re not finished.”

“We’re far from finished, love. You just lay back and let me. Promise.”

  


The toy wasn’t large, smaller than Greg’s own cock, but the hard silicone felt much different than the flexible stretch of Greg’s fingers.

“Are you alright?” Greg asked, moving the thing in and out of his body. John nodded, wrapping himself further around his bed partner. They lay on their sides, facing one another with pillows stacked under their heads. John rolled half on top of Greg, writhing and fucking himself on the dildo in his arse, while Greg rested his chin on John’s shoulder, watching the show. Greg held him tightly, squeezing his arse with one hand while the other pushed the toy in and out in slow, smooth strokes. John’s erection was showing interest again, but Greg knew much of the moaning and squirming had to be for his benefit. Still the sight of the slick pink toy disappearing between John’s firm arse cheeks was enough to make his breath hitch. He pressed messy, sloppy kisses to John’s shoulder and neck, watching the muscles in his back tense and release.

“Do you think I’m ready now?” John gasped, arching his back. Greg pushed the toy in hard and quick, and John jolted on top of him, a hoarse little cry forcing itself out against the skin of Greg’s shoulder.

“Almost, sweetheart,” Greg crooned in his ear, and John turned to kiss his mouth, sweet and hot and wet. The kiss sent heat coursing over John’s skin. His nerves lit with pleasure. His spine ached with it, and words bubbled up under his skin, words like _take_ and _yours_ and _own_. He clung to Greg’s shoulders, his arms, digging in with his fingertips as he rode the wave of sensation radiating through his limbs. Sound gushed up out of his throat, wracked moans and cries that shifted just a touch higher when the dildo dragged over his prostate.

“I’m ready, I am, I know I am,” he whispered against Greg’s jaw, scrabbling for purchase against sweaty skin. Greg shook underneath him, but whether it was from arousal or nerves or the strain to hold back, John couldn’t be sure.

Greg pushed John off of him, careful not to dislodge the toy inside him, and arranged him up on his hands and knees. John watched himself in the mirror attached to Greg’s dresser, right in front of him, and wondered if that had been Greg’s intention. Happy accident, maybe. His skin was sweaty and flushed; his hair still dark from the shower. Behind him, Greg was peering down at his body like it was a banquet laid out at the top table, and him the king. He wiggled his arse a bit, teasing, and Greg groaned at the sight.

Greg couldn’t deny that the view from behind was stunning: the firm flesh of John’s arse enveloped the pink dildo, clenching hard onto the smooth exterior as it slipped out of him and Greg pushed it back in, over and over, dripping with lube. Greg positioned himself right against the backs of John’s thighs, rubbing down his back with one hand while the other fucked him with increasing speed. The sight of John’s enthusiastic panting as he rocked back to meet the thrusts made Greg’s cock twitch, heavy and stiff as it jutted away from his body, still wrapped in latex. Greg shifted, spinning a dial at the base of the toy, and John arched up off of the bed with a shout.

“Holy fuck - Ah! - What is…? Fuck, Greg, Christ, ungggh...” The vibrations deep within John’s body seemed to shake his very bones. Suddenly everything that had been simmering in his blood ratcheted up to a boil. His cock swelled, his bollocks drawing up beneath them, so close, almost -

Greg jerked the toy out quickly, slickly, dripping with lube. John scrambled back, searching for that overwhelming pleasure again, but all he found was the warm, solid presence of Greg at his back.

“Ah, fuck, Greg…” he whined, rubbing his arse against Greg’s hip. Greg stilled him with two large, hot hands guiding his hips. He pushed John’s head down to the bed gently, letting his back arch and his arse turn up.

“Do you think you’re ready now?”

“Yes, please, Christ, just fuck me already!” John groaned as Greg traced the rim of his stretched hole with one finger. John heard the _click-glop-snap_ of the lube bottle being used once more, and then Greg’s cock was at his entrance again. John took a deep breath and bore down, doing his best to stay loose and relaxed as Greg breached him, big and hot and so fucking hard. Greg slid in slowly, by centimeters, opening him one minute bit at a time but so relentlessly that John could do nothing but squirm and struggle to breathe underneath him. Finally, after what felt like ten minutes of constant pressure, Greg draped his body over John’s back, holding him steady with one hand around his trim waist.

“Deep breaths, sweetheart,” Greg crooned in his ear as John shuddered underneath him, driven open and wanting still more. Greg sat back up, fitting his knees between John’s and then pulled John up and back, onto his lap. For a long moment, John just rested there, adjusting to the feeling of Greg inside of him, that cock in his arse, _any_ cock in his arse really, but especially Greg’s, and now, after all that wanting. His head fell back on Greg’s shoulder, and Greg’s strong arms wrapped around him, cradling him close. Greg’s stubble whispered against his jaw as Greg nuzzled him. “How does it feel?”

“Big,” John ground out, shifting his hips in Greg’s lap. Greg chuckled behind him, smoothing one hand over the tensed muscle of John’s thigh.

“Do you know how many times I’ve wanked thinking about these legs?” Greg said against the skin of John’s neck, rolling his hips just once. John flexed his thighs in return, pulling up by inches just once before sliding back down. The shock of Greg’s cock dragging at his insides stole his breath, chest hollow and aching. The harsh exhale against his neck said he wasn’t alone, so John smiled and did it again.

“Can’t be as often as I did,” he replied, sliding slowly and shudderingly up and down Greg’s cock. “Thinking about you bending me over a desk.”

“Oh, fuck,” Greg clenched his hands around John’s hips, lifting his compact body just slightly before pushing him back down, still slow and easy. “You over a… fuck, _John_.”

“Or maybe under, sucking you off,” John laughed, turning his face to press messy kisses to Greg’s head, soft bristles of silver hair sticking his tongue. “Thought about your cock in my mouth. ‘Ve never done that, you know. Not any of it. You’re the…”

Greg shoved up, hard, and for a moment, John lost all ability to communicate beyond loud, desperate moans.

“I’m the first, aren’t I, sweetheart? Isn’t that what you were going to say?” Greg punctuated his phrases with long, hard thrusts up into John’s open body. John’s head lolled back and he gave control of his body completely to Greg, the tension in his muscles melting against the heat of Greg’s hands and the pleasure overwhelming his senses. “The first to touch you like this, to be inside you, taking you?” Greg’s hand ghosted over the skin of John’s cock, giving off heat but not pressure, an almost painful tease.

“Yes, Greg, first,” John grunted, rocking himself up and down on Greg’s lap. Greg leaned backward just slightly, settling himself against the headboard, and pulled John back with him.

“Look at you,” Greg said, a smile in his voice as he stroked one large hand over John’s cock. “Look at how well you’re taking my cock, sweetheart. Love it don’t you? I can see it. You’re just aching for me to bend you over and fuck you hard.” John shuddered and nodded, bouncing on Greg’s lap with increasing zeal. The head of Greg’s cock ground firmly against his prostate and John’s mouth fell slack with the pleasure of it, an intense spark of lust shooting through him. Greg’s voice took on a hard edge as he spoke quietly against the shell of John’s ear, “I told you to look at yourself, John.”

Look John did. He raised his head to stare at the mirror across the room from them, large and crystal-clear. He watched as his slick, rosy body bounced up and down on Greg’s cock, muscles in his legs shifting and tensing in turn. He watched as Greg’s hips ground up into him, hard and solid, pushing Greg’s cock into his arse over and over again. He watched as Greg’s hand moved smoothly and easily at his foreskin, sliding it up over the head before slicking it back down the shaft in long, languid pulls.

He watched Greg’s face in the mirror: ruggedly handsome, hot with exertion, and completely focused on him.

“Oh, fuck, fuck,” John cried out, grinding down quickly before pushing up into Greg’s fist. “Gonna.. I’m… I’m gonna…”

“Come for me, baby,” Greg growled in his ear. “Come for me while I fuck this pretty arse of yours.”

For a split second, John felt as if he was floating. The earth stopped spinning while Greg’s cock plowed in and out of him, right on the edge of pain and _so good, so good._ He clenched his eyes shut as Greg’s hand twisted over the head of his cock, _just right, just right_. Then suddenly reality hit him again, and he was coming, hard and long, words streaming from his lips: “Fuck, Greg, fuck me, fuck me, come in me Greg, please.”

Within seconds, John’s face was pressed against the mattress and his arse in the air. Greg pounded into him, unrestrained, quiet grunts and the smack of skin the only sounds in the room. John held tight to the duvet underneath him, relishing the heightened sensitivity of the afterglow. Greg held tightly to his hips, hard enough to leave bruises, and then buried himself to the hilt inside John’s limp, willing body. John wanted to see him, to watch his face as he came, but he couldn’t move, body wracked and exhausted.

_Next time_ , he promised himself, as Greg pulled out and slumped down to the bed next to him. Greg pulled him onto his side and spooned up behind him, caressing John’s skin with careful, steady hands. After a few moments, Greg pressed a kiss to his shoulder and said, so soft, “Hungry?”

“In a bit,” John said. He turned in the circle of Greg’s arms and pressed a sweet kiss to his lips. “Can we just… stay here, for the moment?”

“As long as you need, sweetheart.”

  


The smell of coffee woke him. John didn’t drink coffee, himself, but he knew the smell, and what it meant if he’d slept in long enough that he’d wake up to it: late for school. He sat up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes with one palm. It took him a full minute to register that he wasn’t at home, in his bed, that it wasn’t his mother’s coffee he was smelling.

“Want a cup?” Greg asked, face calm and composed.

“Ah, no,” John grimaced. He shifted on the bed, leaning against the headboard, and winced. Bad idea. Greg grinned.

“Might want to take it easy there today,” he said, trying to keep from laughing. John scowled at him.

“Planning on letting me, are you?” John arched an eyebrow, trying to maintain his grumpy morning face. It was a doomed venture from the beginning, and soon he was fighting his own giggles, late morning sunlight streaming over his face.

“Absolutely,” Greg smiled. He pushed a bottle of water into John’s hands and watched greedily as John gulped it down, enraptured by the fluid motion of his adam’s apple bobbed under the thin skin of his throat. “I have plans for you today. Non-arse-centric plans.”

John looked at him quizzically. “Um… what sort of plans?”

Greg pulled a brochure out of his nightstand. He sat it gently in John’s lap, the brilliant red ink contrasting with the pale tan of Greg’s bedding.

“What’s this then?” John looked taken aback, but not upset. Just surprised.

“This was probably a bad decision, John,” Greg said, soft and low. John’s brow furrowed, but he pushed forward anyway. “Not a decision I regret. Not a decision I’ll probably ever regret in my life. But not a good one, just the same. Still…” he sighed, set his coffee cup down on the nightstand, turned his body slightly in toward John. “If I’m going to be a bad decision, I want it to be a meaningful one. The bad decision you had to make, to get someone to see you, to know.”

“I don’t…”

“I went to the careers office today. Got you all the brochures I could, and an enlistment paperwork packet. You can’t officially join until you’re 18 or you have a parent’s signature. I know your dad probably won’t agree, and your mom will be upset, but if this is what you want… I’m going to do whatever I can to help you make it happen, John.”

John stared down at the crest, gold and black against the sea of red, and his heart skipped a beat. He kissed Greg, impulsive and quick, just a brush of lips before pulling open the brightly coloured packet.

“When can we get started?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to go: the epilogue! 
> 
> Thank you for sticking with me through this one folks. I know posting's been a bit rough, but there's light (and Early Bisexual Three Continents Watson smut!) at the end of the tunnel. :)


	6. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the thanks to [Provocatrixxx](http://provocatrixxx.tumblr.com/) for assisting me with John's CMT service, and to [Essbee](http://futuremrswatson.tumblr.com) for her ongoing invaluable insight, reading, and support for this story.
> 
> There is some time-jumping in this chapter. If it's confusing, I've left the order in the notes at the end, but I think you shouldn't have an issue with it. Also, please take care: there are some homophobic slurs used in this chapter, minimally.

_** Eight Years Later ** _

Greg stood in front of the mirror, straightening his tie. Again. For the fourth time.

“Do you really think the exact angle of your tie is going to distract him from eight extra years on your face?” Sherlock Holmes smirked from the sofa. Greg shot him a glare and pulled the bloody thing off.

“Fuck off, Holmes,” he grumbled, pulling his blazer off as well. As if he wasn’t nervous enough already. And of course, irony of all ironies, Holmes looked just as young and ethereal as he had when John had been a lust-consumed teenager. “I know it tends to slip your mind completely, but actual people age.”

“Am I not actual people then?” Sherlock asked, still smiling.

“Of course not, you bastard. Actual people have feelings.”

Sherlock sat up, looking extremely offended, which was how Greg could tell it was a farce. “I can assure you I most certainly do have feelings,” Sherlock gasped, hands fluttering. “And you’ve hurt them. Abominably.”

“Overdid it there, Data. Almost believed you were a real boy though!” Greg found himself grinning despite his nerves and caught Sherlock grinning in return. Git. The tie went back on, a loose knot forming without a second thought.

Greg sat down in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair, significantly more grey than last time he’d seen John. He ran over the details in his head again: he had an hour and a half to drop Sherlock off at headquarters, get to the station and pick John up, and then…

And then.

* * *

 

“Did you think that people wouldn’t find out, Mr. Lestrade?” Mycroft Holmes’ calm voice ricocheted off of the walls of the small office they were sandwiched into. A tea tray sat on the desk in front of him, mostly ignored. Greg’s shoulders were tense as he fiddled with the arm of the stiff wooden chair he sat in.

“I’m not… I don’t -”

“Oh, don’t concern yourself. I’m not overly preoccupied with the moral and ethical behavior of sixth form teachers,” the man said, practically radiating smugness. “But the fact of the matter is, you very likely won’t be a sixth form teacher much longer.”

Greg grimaced, but he’d known it was coming. Really, as good a kid as John was - and that was the kicker, wasn’t it? Greg had spent an entire weekend shagging the daylights out of a _good kid_ \- there was never a chance that this wasn’t going to completely reroute his life.

“Who are you then?” Greg asked, voice full of lead. “From the advisory council or something?”

“Oh, goodness no,” Mycroft smiled. “I’m no one. Well, no one you should be overly concerned about at the moment. But I believe you know my brother, Sherlock?”

“Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes?” Greg’s eyebrows shot up. “Then that makes you Mycroft Holmes. The Government.”

“He is so dramatic, isn’t he?” Mycroft pursed his lips slightly and stirred a cooling cup of tea.

“Fucking bastard, did he tell you? Because, you know, he locked me in that damn lab and -”

“And nothing happened, yes, I know,” Mycroft took a sip and grimaced, poured in more sugar. “And then you proceeded to take the boy - ah, Watson, is it? - to your home for the weekend. You were seen leaving together around 2:18 on Sunday afternoon, he with a somewhat deliberate gait. As if attempting to hide some discomfort, if you will.”

“You were spying on me?” Greg tried to tamp down the growing anger bubbling up into his chest, his throat, threatening to spill over.

“Me? No, of course not. I have people to do that,” Mycroft smiled a shark’s smile. “Now, if you’re quite done interrupting, I’m here to discuss the future of your employment.”

“Why?” Greg ground out.

“Because you’re an interesting man, Gregory. You have maintained a less-than-hostile working relationship with my brother for several years now, and that is an incredibly rare thing, as I am sure you are aware.”

“Sherlock’s a prick, yeah, we all know, but... he’s not all that bad if you just don’t let him get to you. As stupid as he can be occasionally, he’s brilliant, and I do think he wants to be kind. Occasionally. But what’s that to do with my job?”

“I think we’re both aware that the young man you spent time with last weekend will be difficult for you to… keep your distance from. I’m offering you an opportunity.”

“Opportunity for what?” Greg’s brow furrowed. Was this a threat, a job offer, or both?

“An opportunity to atone for your sins, Gregory. An opportunity to make things right.”

“You’re going to do something for John?”

“No, but I believe you are.”

“And what’s that?” Greg shifted forward in his chair. _Anything, anything_.

“You’re going to leave.”

* * *

 

“Why did you go into teaching, if you could always have had a job like this?” Greg marvelled at the spacious office, and floor-to-ceiling windows, the grand desk.

“Believe it or not,” Sherlock leaned back in his chair, feet propped up on solid oak, “at one time I believed myself called to help others.”

“...And so you terrified school children for the better part of a decade.”

“I tried to help them learn to _think_ , Lestrade,” Sherlock drawled, elongating his words in a way that grated on Greg’s nerves.

“And now you’re done with that.” It wasn’t quite a question. Greg drummed his fingers on the plush padded arms of the chair he sat in, his memory supplying a coat-cupboard-office and hard wooden back.

“Obviously,” Sherlock gestured absently to the office.

“Why?” The question was quiet, half-breath, and for a moment Sherlock Holmes simply stared at Greg with a peculiar look on his face. And then, simply and elegantly, he replied.

“Well, I couldn’t very well keep teaching if people discovered you’d been fucking a student and I hadn’t. Would have ruined my reputation, you know.”

Greg cracked a smile. “Reputation for what? Biggest arse in school?”

“That, and most sought after,” Sherlock grinned. He took a breath, held it for just a moment, and plowed ahead. “So, you’re to be my assistant? Then assist me in scrubbing this place of my brother. Even the sticky notes ooze Mycroft. Let’s just… tear it all up, shall we?”

“Let’s just.”

* * *

 

The train station was packed. Throngs of people stood in small clumps, chattering or reading on their mobiles or doing any of the normal, inane things people did when they were being normal, inane people. It got under Greg’s skin a bit, before he realized it and nipped it in the bud. Spending way too much time with Sherlock Holmes. On second thought, had always spent way too much time with Sherlock Holmes.

He’d expected to be early, or, at the very least, right on time. Instead he was bordering on almost-late, and it chafed, the realization that John could be out there amongst the crowd, alone, looking for him. He searched the masses for a familiar blond head.

_John Watson, bright blond and brown and blue, wearing nothing but Greg’s button down shirt over those tall football socks, watching and waiting for him to come home from work, to take him back to bed, to take him apart again with his lips and his tongue and his hands and his cock -_

Greg shook himself fiercely. The blushing seventeen year old Greg had known, was looking for, didn’t exist anymore. The boy had grown up, gone to a warzone, was a man. Greg fingered the letter in his pocket, the paper so creased from folding and unfolding that Greg was afraid he might rip it if he unwrapped it again. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need to see it to remember the words:

  


_Greg Lestrade,_

_I sincerely hope that you remember me, though I’ll understand if you don’t. I saw your name in the paper a few days ago, and I’ve been thinking of you since. I didn’t know you weren’t a teacher anymore, but I guess it makes sense._

_I’m coming home on leave in a week and I would like to see you. If you are interested, meet me at King’s Cross Station under the clock at 3._

_-John Watson_

  


Greg stood, hands in his pockets, trying to look around as unobtrusively as possible. Around him the clusters of strangers were growing smaller, more spread out as people made their departures, and Greg cursed inwardly that he didn’t have a picture of John, or even a description, to go on. The chances that John was even still recognizable were -

“Coach?” a familiar voice called from behind him. Greg turned cautiously, deliberately, definitely not over eager. In front of him stood a short, blond, incredibly fit man with tanned skin and ocean eyes, wrapped in dark denim and an almost-too-tight t-shirt with three slightly strained buttons at the neck. John grinned, self-assurance leaking out of every pore, and Greg grinned with him.

“I think I said you could call me Greg,” he quipped, holding out his hand for John’s. John grabbed it, but instead of shaking, pulled him forward into a tight embrace. Greg stood for a moment, a bit shocked, a bit overwhelmed, before hugging back. In his arms, John was warm and solid and so present.

“Sorry, sorry,” John said, easing away after a few long minutes. “It’s just. I didn’t think I’d see you again. I’ve been pinching myself the whole way home. Didn’t think you’d show up.”

Greg’s heart fell as he picked up John’s small duffel bag and swung it over his own shoulder.

“I’m… sorry to have given you reason to doubt me, John. Truly.”

“No, I didn’t mean - I just meant, it’s good. To see you again.”

“It’s good to see you, too,” Greg forced a smile before nodding toward the station exit. “Fancy a pint?”

“Fucking parched.”

  


The pub was noisy, even at half-three, but Greg soon found himself leaning into John’s space as he was regaled with stories of Kenya, Brunei, Cyprus.  John’s face lit up, animated and entrancing, as he told tales of training exercises gone hilarious, or of helping patch up natives in embattled lands.

“So you’re a doctor now, like you wanted?” Greg marvelled, taking a pull off his pint.

“Ah, no, not quite. I’m a CMT, a combat medical technician. But this is better, I think,” John’s eyes seemed to glow with life and youth and exuberance in a way they rarely had eight years before. “I get to go out in the world and do things, save people. It’s… this was always what I wanted. I just didn’t know it. You know?”

Greg licked his lips as he watched the powerful line of John’s jaw, the way light played in his short, sun-bleached hair, the texture of his skin, rougher now than it had been years before. All over, evidence of John’s time away was apparent, in the way that he looked and spoke and acted, his ease of movement, his freedom of expression, a certain ready tension in his limbs and shoulders. Some things hadn’t changed though: mirth haunting the corners of John’s mouth, flirtation in his sideways glances, confidence radiating from his stance, making him seem larger, more present than anyone else in the room. Within the space of half a second, Greg’s mouth had gone dry, and he could only nod. Yes, he understood quite well what it was like to want unknowingly, and to find the object of that desire.

John caught Greg’s roving eye with his own, expression soft but sure.

“You never said why you left,” he traced idle circles in the condensation on the table, not nervous, just constant, mobile.

“Somebody made me an offer…”

“What, that you couldn’t refuse?” John smiled for a moment before his face fell again. “You could have told me, you know. I would have understood.”

 _John, sat on his desk in just his pants, giving Greg a sloppy, clumsy, gloriously sexy handjob while Greg tried to explain why they couldn’t see one another again._ Greg shook his head, trying to dislodge the fantasy and John’s frown at the same time.

“It was one of the requirements of the job,” Greg took a drink, trying to re-wet his palate. “No one could know.”

“I never told anyone, you know. Not a soul. Will never. You didn’t have to worry.”

“You didn’t have to tell, John. As soon as I kissed you on that desk, my life was effectively over. But that didn’t really matter, and that wasn’t why I left.”

“Then why?” John snapped, storm clouds in his dark blue eyes. He took a deep breath, pulling himself back together before trying again. “Why’d you leave? Why didn’t you even say anything to me? I showed up at school that Wednesday after and you were gone, both you and Mr. Holmes. Everyone at school said you’d… said you’d run off together. That you were in love…”

“Did you believe them?” Greg lifted an eyebrow.

“No. No, of course not,” John huffed, still tracing circles on the table. “Not after… No. But still, it hurt. I was a kid. I didn’t know if you were in trouble, if I’d upset you…”

“That was why I had to go,” Greg said, quiet. Behind him, somewhere in the world outside of uncomfortable discussions of eight year old emotions, a raucous group of rugby viewers cheered at what had to be a re-run. “My leaving, after one weekend, hurt you. Imagine what I would have done if I had stayed.”

“Believe me,” John laughed. “I did. Daily.” Something in John’s quiet chuckle made Greg’s blood heat, thrum desperately under his skin. He knew he shouldn’t. He had hurt John, and this...visit, whatever this was, was just an attempt to explain that, nothing more. It was John’s chance for closure. Greg squared his shoulders, ready to bypass the moment of heat completely, to ignore the blood-hot-hum of arousal he’d been fighting off since he’d first seen John in the train station.

So it was rather unexpected, to him at least, when instead of saying “I’m sorry,” he said, “Did you?”

Greg watched, fascinated, as something in John seemed to unspool. The almost-tense military bearing he’d held since the station seemed to slip off his shoulders as he leaned forward, licking his lips.

“Every day I’d walk into that history classroom and daydream about you fucking me over that desk. I’d get in the showers after football practice and imagine you coming up behind me and making me suck your cock. I went home at night and thought about you taking me in my little single bed, with my dad downstairs drinking.” John’s eyes glittered as he spoke, pupils dilating slowly, but steadily. “Daily, I thought about your prick in my hands or my mouth or my arse. For months.”

Greg shifted in his chair, erection straining in his trousers. He’d assumed these would be a safe bet, the loosest pair he owned, but apparently nothing was ever going to cure him of the insatiable desire for John Watson. If anything, it had got worse. He cleared his throat, trying to think of something, anything he could do to lead this encounter back to the safe waters of abject apology and begrudging acceptance, but was interrupted by John taking hold of his carefully chosen tie and pulling forward.

“I didn’t track you down so that you could tell me how sorry you are. I came here so I could show you what you missed.”

Before Greg knew precisely what was happening, John’s lips were on his. The press was sweet and soft at first, so reminiscent of a time when John had also been sweet and soft, that Greg almost didn’t notice he was half out of his seat with John’s tongue swirling around his own until one of the rugby watchers threw a balled up napkin soaked in beer at his face. It connected with a sick, shocking splat.

“Get a fucking room, ya arse bandit,” a heavy-set bloke sitting near the bar called out. His friends laughed as John grimaced and used a handkerchief to wipe smeared alcohol off Greg’s face. Blood rushed in Greg’s head, whooshed in his ears, made him see stars. For a moment, he was so preoccupied with his own anger that he didn’t notice the cool, hard rage in John’s eyes. That moment didn’t last long.

“Did you find that funny, then?” John asked, strolling up to the much larger man without urgency, a hard, manic grin on his face.

“Look, I got nothing against queers. I don’t mind if you bite a pillow or two in the privacy of your bedroom, but-” the man’s homophobic diatribe was cut off suddenly and efficiently by one short, lethal forearm across his throat, John’s body pinning him effectively to the wall. The others in his group watched, slack-jawed, as the sweet-faced young man suddenly transformed into something dangerous, something dark.

“Are we done now, or am I going to have to make you beg for air?” John’s voice was light, bubbling up out of him just like his laugh used to on the football pitch, and Greg was slammed full force with shameful, intense, mind blowing need. Greg savored the fierce smile on John’s face for two seconds too long before he gathered himself and threw some notes at the bartender. The man against the wall sputtered, face turning an unpleasant shade of purple. His friends hovered near the end of the bar, hushed and hesitant, as Greg pulled John gently away.

“Take me home, Greg. I’d very much like to bite things in your bedroom now,” John grinned, never taking his eyes off the bigot gasping against the paneling. Greg shivered, aroused and more than a little afraid of that manic gleam.

“I’d prefer it if you kept your teeth to yourself, but if you insist…” Greg held the sleeve of John’s light jacket, tugging him along. Just before they reached the door, John stopped, pulling Greg back to meet him. With all the smooth self-assurance he’d lacked in sixth form, John wrapped an arm around Greg’s body and dipped him backward, pressing a deep, messy kiss to his lips. Greg did his best to stay standing, back bent over John’s strong left arm, knees shaking with want. When John pulled away, he hovered just for a second, almost uncertainly, before pulling Greg upright again. Greg smiled.

“You’re coming home with me soldier.”

“Yes sir, Coach.”

Greg backed John up the stairs to 221b. The concerned voice of Mrs. Hudson sounded from downstairs, but Greg couldn’t pull his lips away long enough to respond.  Crushing John against the front door, he fumbled with his keys for long moments, the feeling of John’s deft lips and tongue against his neck, agile fingers at his waistband. Later, he wouldn’t even recall how they made it to the Baker Street flat, but he recalled with perfect detail the way John pinned him with his back to the door once they were inside, the way the young man looked sliding to his knees.

“Been dreaming of doing this for ages,” John grinned, licking his lips. Greg’s trousers were around his ankles in the space of a breath, but John stopped him when he tried to step out of them. “I’ve thought about it, you know. Trapping you, just like this.” John rubbed his face against Greg’s erection, only the thin cotton of his pants separating skin from skin. “Keeping you here to use any way I’d like.” The heat of John’s tongue bled through his pants making Greg wish, for one shining hysterical moment, that he had the ability to dissolve fibers with his mind.

“What else have you thought about?” Greg found his voice just enough to choke out. John opened his mouth and pressed it around the head of his cock, soaking the cotton with saliva in moments. Greg ran his fingers through John’s military-short hair, grasping it hard and pressing John’s face securely against his prick. John groaned, a loud, low sound against Greg’s pants before frantically pulling them down. Greg barely had time to hiss, “Yes,” before John’s mouth was on him, taking half of his length in one slick slide.

Greg let his head fall back against the door, eyes clenched tight as John worked the length of his cock with that hot, sweet, wet mouth. His breath came short as John’s throat closed around him and he grabbed uselessly at John’s hair, his shoulder, the doorknob behind him. He wanted so badly to see it, but he knew as soon as he looked down and saw those beautiful blue eyes looking up at him -

_Seventeen year old John is on his knees in the locker room shower, sucking Greg off with frenzied, sloppy fervor. Above him, Greg threatens, “You have two minutes. If I don’t come, I’m taking it out of your arse, boy.”_

“STOP,” Greg managed to grit out, shoving John back as gently as he could. John disengaged, looking up with big, concerned eyes. His mouth and chin were wet and dripping, lips swollen and so pink against the soft tan of his skin. Greg pinched himself, hard, to will his orgasm back down. He sank shakily to the ground, trousers still pooled around his ankles, and pulled John forward for a long, slow kiss. When they broke, he pulled his tie off and carefully wiped the spit from John’s chin with it. “Sorry. I just… Needed to calm down a bit.” He smiled ruefully.

“Don’t worry,” John grinned. “We have some time. I don’t mind taking care of you this way and getting mine later.” John crawled carefully over Greg’s legs, straddling his lap without touching his aching erection. Greg pulled him forward, wincing as the denim of John’s jeans dragged roughly over the sensitive skin of his cock, but holding him securely just the same.

“There is no fucking way you’re going to deprive me of seeing you come after all of this,” Greg smiled, reaching down to squeeze John’s arse. John kissed his jaw, his ears, down his neck, licking and biting as the tension stretched out between them. Greg kneaded his arse, delighted in the harsh scrape of John’s jeans on his thighs, tried very hard not to think about the fact that he almost came while fantasizing about a boy when he had the man right there, sucking his dick. With great reluctance, he pushed John back and away.

“We should go… upstairs. My room’s on the third floor,” he muttered as John continued kissing any skin he could reach: the palm of Greg’s hand, the inside of his wrist, one slow suck of his fingers. John helped Greg up with one strong pull, and laughed as Greg tripped over his bunched-up trousers.

“Let’s get these off?” He asked lightly, pulling his own t-shirt up over his head. Greg watched, giddy, as John’s body was revealed to him: hard, well-knit muscle under softly browned skin, harsh tan lines around his wrists, his biceps, at his waist. Greg could picture him there in the desert, shirt off under the evening sun as he relaxed after duty.

_John, older, rough housing with the other soldiers. John playing pick-up football in the sand, sweat running down his chest and back. John kneeling in his tent, sucking off his commanding officer with relish._

The force of the images made Greg groan, eyes falling closed as he toed off his shoes.

“Fuck, John,” he whined as John stripped off his own belt and boots. John whistled, catching Greg’s attention again as he unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, offering a tantalizing glimpse of skin underneath. No pants. With an utter lack of grace that belied his athletic past, Greg tripped out of his trousers and began clumsily attempting to unbutton his shirt as he backed toward the stairs. “Upstairs, John. Upstairs. Now. Come on.”

John held his jeans with one hand as he followed Greg up, a lusty smirk plastered over his face. Greg managed to stay ahead of him on the stairs, leading by example as he scrambled up the steps backward, heels catching, knees shaking, hands fluttering uselessly over the placket of his shirt. Finally, on the landing, John caught up with him pressing him back against the wall and sliding one denim-clad knee between Greg’s thighs. With pin-point precision, John pushed Greg’s buttons out of their holes, following the  unveiling of skin with his mouth. Greg cringed as steel grey chest hair made itself almost immediately apparent, but John just smiled and rubbed his nose against Greg’s sternum, breathing in the scent of him with a quiet groan.

“Fuck, you are gorgeous,” John muttered, pushing Greg’s shirt off his shoulders. Greg leaned against the wall dazedly; he couldn’t even remember the last time someone had gone to bed with him and acted like it was anything less than a favor. It may have even been John, all that time ago. But even then, John hadn’t been like this.

“Been thinking about you,” John continued, working his way down Greg’s side, planting gentle bites and kisses over the skin stretched across Greg’s ribs. “Thinking about that gorgeous silver hair of yours. Knew it’d be mostly turned by now. So fucking hot. And your smile. Still gorgeous. And this,” John reached back and around, grabbing Greg’s arse. “Thought about this quite a bit, actually.”

Greg’s heart raced and butterflies filled his stomach. It took several long breaths before he found his voice.

“Thought about me, did you?” he said, cringing inwardly at himself.

“Didn’t you think about me?” John pressed lavish kisses to Greg’s hipbones, licking the skin and biting the muscles just below. “I pictured you here while I was in Canada, fucking a nurse with big brown eyes. I pictured you in India when I played football with the lads on base and one of them winked at me. Thought about you while I wanked in the shower for fucking ages. Two years at least.”

Greg gathered his strength and dragged John up from the floor. “Bed, now,” he mustered, turning John toward the bedroom. With great care he unbuttoned his cuffs and slid his shirt off of his arms, letting it drop neatly to the floor. He watched, reverent, as John peeled off his jeans, cock springing free. John made himself comfortable on the bed, leaning back on his elbows to put his fit form on display.

“So you’re telling me you didn’t think of me? Not even when you got off?” John challenged, grinding his hips in slow, easy circles on the bed. Greg watched a point on the duvet just next to his head, kept his eyes off that golden body. He kissed John’s knees where they hung over the side, kissed his thighs, climbed up and kissed his shoulders, each perfect and muscular and so much different, so much better.

“I didn’t know you existed,” Greg tried to smile, burying his face in John’s skin, rubbing greedy hands over it like he could soak up the desert sunshine through his palms.

“The old me, then?” John pushed, and pushed up, hips slotting between Greg’s legs. “Did you ever think of me at all?”

“Eight years,” Greg ground out before pushing a fierce kiss to John’s mouth. “I don’t know that I’ve ever stopped thinking about you.”

John shuddered underneath him. The heat of his body under Greg’s felt like home, satisfied a nostalgia for a place he hadn’t known existed. The warm comfort of someone he knew, really knew, from before this insane life of undercover work and Holmes-handling, sent tendrils of affection and want through his limbs, his fingers and toes. John dragged him down with an arm around his neck and pressed frantic kisses to his face. Greg let him.

“I don’t know why but I…” John trailed off, tried again, “I looked for you. Everywhere I went for four years I looked for you. I thought maybe, I don’t know, you’d show up out of the blue, like people do in movies or something.”

“I was here. The whole time I was here,” Greg mouthed across John’s jaw, then pushed him steadily away. “Up there. Get up there. Want to taste you.” John scooted to the head of the bed but stopped Greg with one steady hand.

“Condoms?” John asked, and then with a grin, “A pillow for my arse? Last time we were in this position, I believe you said it was going to take a while.”

Greg groped in the nightstand drawer for condoms and lube, purchased at Tesco’s on a well-timed whim the night before. At least, that’s what he’d told Holmes. He tossed a condom to John as he picked up the lubricant.

“Been a while since I bottomed, so, ah, forgive me if I prepare myself, would ya?” Greg smiled, hoping it held. _Shit_ , he should have at least practiced last night, but he’d been awake until two on a case with Sherlock and then he… well, he hadn’t wanted to jinx anything. John raised his eyebrows.

“I wasn’t under the impression that you, um, would enjoy that,” John ventured, fiddling with the condom packet. Greg stopped, squeezing the bottle tightly in one hand.

“I just thought, maybe…”

“What, since I’m not a kid anymore, I wouldn’t want to take it?” John chewed his lip as he stared at the condom package in his hand.

“No, it’s not… it’s not that,” Greg sighed. “I just thought… well, you were so aggressive downstairs. I thought you might want to… you know, control the action. Get your own back, I guess. I don’t mind. Really. It’s just been a while.”

John’s face was a study in stillness for a moment, and then he smiled, wicked and inviting.

“You think,” he asked, slinking forward to press Greg down on his back, “that I can’t,” a sucking kiss to Greg’s hipbone, bright and wet and lurid in the filtered sunlight, “‘control the action,’” Greg felt his legs pinned between John’s own, strong and sure, “from the bottom?”

Greg gazed up at him, dazed. John straddled his legs, effectively pinning him, offering brief moments of contact just where Greg wanted it but not nearly enough. John leaned down and rubbed against him, cock dragging over Greg’s own for one long delicious second before whispering in his ear, “You just lay back and let me.”

Greg watched, open-mouthed, as John slathered his own fingers in lube and pressed them behind him. John tossed the condom at Greg. “You wanted to prepare yourself, right? Well, now’s the time. It doesn’t take me long.” His breath hitched and Greg wished for a moment that he had X-Ray vision so he could see the way those fingers plunged in and out of John’s hot, slick hole. Instead, he did his best to focus on the warmth of John’s skin above him, the breathless whine forcing its way out of John’s throat, the electric tension that stole over his body as John met his eyes. He fumbled with the condom packet, feeling exposed and vulnerable as he rolled the latex on over his throbbing cock.

“Stroke yourself,” John growled, holding the lube aloft and drizzling it over his erection. “Want you wet for me.” Arousal fizzled through Greg’s nerves, made his bones ache with the need to thrust and push and devour. One hand slid in a rough massage over the skin of John’s thigh while the other stroked his own cock hard and slow. He reached for John’s erection, eyeing the precome dripping from his slit, but John batted his hand away. “You can touch when I say so, and not before. Are you ready?”

Greg’s mouth was so dry it took several long seconds before he could form sounds. “Yeah, yeah, God, so ready,” spilled from his lips as John settled over him, knees on either side of Greg’s waist. John reached out with one hand, and Greg met it with his own, elbow resting on the bed. Their fingers laced together as John sank down onto Greg’s cock in one smooth, fluid motion. With his free hand, Greg clung to John’s thigh, caressing the lightly haired skin there.

“How you feeling, sweetheart?” John grinned, holding tightly to Greg’s hand as he moved his hips in small circles. His arse grazed Greg’s bollocks, sending shooting pangs of arousal through Greg’s body.

“So fucking good,” Greg grunted, rolling his own hips up into John’s. “Be so much better if your face was closer, though.”

“Well, I’d hate to be impolite,” John laughed as he slid up and down just once on Greg’s cock. Greg pushed himself up, using his elbows to stay steady, and used his grasp on John’s hand to pull the blond close. The kiss was searing, enveloping in all the ways that Greg liked best. It was hot, wet, messy, dirty, desperate, like the pulse of John’s arse around his cock, like the clench of John’s fingers around his hand, John in his mouth and nose and eyes and ears, surrounding him, drowning in him. John sucked Greg’s bottom lip with eloquent zeal, biting gently at the wet flesh as he slid up and down in Greg’s lap. Greg tried to pull his knees up, to buck up into the tight heat of John’s body, but John leaned back, pushing them back down.

“I don’t think so,” he grinned. One hand rested on Greg’s thigh, the other still holding tight to Greg’s hand, as John pushed himself up and down with those strong thighs Greg had always been crazy about. His head lolled back on his shoulders, broad, gorgeous chest on display. Greg drank up the sight even as the slow burn of John’s surprisingly dominant attitude ate through his restraint. His hips jumped, seeking a faster pace, but John kept on with his agonizingly slow ride.

“This is killing you, isn’t it?” John asked, his face to the ceiling. “Having to lay there and deal with it while I take my pleasure from you? Must be driving you crazy.” John sped up momentarily, slamming himself down in quick succession three times before slowing again. Greg was dizzy with pleasure, the incredible heat, the friction, the pull of John’s body against him. “Thought about your cock while I was gone, you know. The first time another man fucked me, I thought about you, how you took me apart with your fingers and your mouth and that fucking vibrator. Got one of my own, practiced with it all the time, just in case…”

“In case what?” Greg ground out, fingers clenching in the sheets.

“In case you came back. Wanted to be ready for you. Worked out okay for me,” John grinned. His hips stuttered as he rode, and his body was covered in a sheen of sweat.

“I bet it did,” Greg muttered, trying to talk and grind his teeth at the same time. “Body like this, it’s no wonder you’ve had lovers on three continents, John.”

John leaned forward again, pressing hot kisses to Greg’s mouth. “It’s a much different body than the one I had before.” The statement hung in the air between them, and Greg’s heart clenched with the unspoken sentiment under it: “Is it still a body you want?”

“You’re gorgeous,” Greg breathed. “Beautiful. Sweetheart, just, let me…” John nodded and snuggled down close as Greg braced his feet against the bed and fucked him in earnest. Each powerful thrust of his hips brought Greg higher, further, closer to that staggering edge as John moaned and writhed on top of him. “Can I touch you, beautiful?” Greg mouthed at John’s brow, the closest piece of skin to him. “Want to see you come so badly.”

“Yes, yes, please,” John kissed Greg’s throat, sucking marks and pressing words against his skin. “Touch me, do it, come on.” Greg wriggled his free hand between their bodies, stroking John with harsh, fast pulls. John’s hand in his clenched tight, his arse tighter, as Greg thrust and stroked in time, working John’s whole body with his own. “Look at me,” John demanded, harsh and thick. “Look at my face.” Greg focused on those lovely blue eyes as John began to tip over the edge. “I want you to see me, just like this.”

“I see you, John,” Greg husked, eyes wide as John collapsed on his chest, cock jerking and come covering Greg’s hand and both their bellies. Greg pulled his hand free, grasped John’s arse, and thrust into him quick and hard, chasing his own release. John clenched around him, breathing encouragements as Greg slammed into him over and over again: “so good, so good, come on, Greg, yes, come on, for me, come for me.”

As the waves of pleasure crashing over him reached their peak, Greg buried himself deeply within John’s body, crushing John to his chest. Their entwined hands ached with the force of holding on, but neither of them let go, choosing instead to cling to the anchor of _here, now, us, together, yes_. After a long beat, John rolled carefully off of Greg, wincing as Greg’s cock slid out of him. They lay together on the bed, clasped hands resting between them, as each fought to catch their breath.

“That was…”

“Amazing,” Greg finished, rolling up onto his side. He watched John carefully, watched as the young man put himself back together, put back on the dominant shield of his new personality. Greg reached out with a gentle hand, stroked the side of John’s sweaty face, marvelled at the play of sunlight on his hair. “I missed you,” he said. If something far more unlikely and sentimental threatened to bubble up, he clamped down with an iron fist. None of that. Not for now.

“Well, you’re a lucky man then,” John said, gruff, as he pushed his face into Greg’s hand.

“Why’s that?”

“Because you have two weeks before you’ll have to miss me again.”

“Well, then, I guess I better use them wisely,” Greg laughed, kissing John’s shoulder. “Can’t be having you leave without missing me too.”

* * *

 

“Your colleague, Mr. Lestrade, the history teacher?” Mycroft said, sitting behind his grand desk. Sherlock glanced up, too quick, and caught the smug smile on Mycroft’s face before it could be erased. “It seems you have put him in a compromising situation this weekend, brother dear.” The flicker of the monitor on Mycroft’s desk showed the feed from a camera in Sherlock’s lab: John Watson, student, being kissed senseless on the desk by Greg Lestrade. Sherlock swallowed.

“What do you want, Mycroft?” His heart thudded uncomfortably in his chest as he considered 13 possible ways of getting that footage and destroying it before it destroyed someone else.

“Oh, I think you know,” Mycroft slid a file toward him. On top, a labor contract and clearance paperwork with his own name blazoned at the top. “There are already multiple copies of this footage in three different locations. If you’d like him to be free of this, there is a very simple solution, Sherlock. Sign the papers.”

Sherlock scowled, but picked up his pen anyway. “And if I do, what happens to them?”

“Why, nothing. The young Mr. Watson goes on to do whatever it is mediocre, poverty-stricken sixth formers do with their lives, and Gregory Lestrade isn’t arrested for sexually assaulting a minor. Everyone’s happy.”

“Greg comes with me,” Sherlock heard himself saying. “And all copies of that recording are destroyed. Immediately.”

“Whatever you say, Sherlock. Would you like a corner office as well? I’m sure it can all be arranged,” Mycroft’s face was still, haughty, fucking frustrating. Sherlock scrawled his name along the empty line.

“There. You have me. I hope the wait was painful,” he sulked, sinking into the overstuffed chair.

“Oh Sherlock,” Mycroft grinned, shark-like, “Your particular set of skills is exactly what the ministry needs, a rare and valuable fruit on the vine.” Mycroft ruffled through the paperwork in the file, and Sherlock caught a glance of a photo: a football pitch, and on it, a young man looking longingly toward the sidelines. “But you had to know, brother… it has always been mine for the picking.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And, that is it! For those who may have struggled with the time-lapsing, we have: 1. 8 Years after the events of Chapter 5; 2. 2 Days after the events of Chapter Five; 3. 3 Days after the events of Chapter Five; 4. 8 Years after the events of Chapter 5; 5. During the events of Chapter 4/5. 
> 
> For those of you who have stuck with this fic through the many weeks of no updates, thank you so much. Your comments, encouragements via tumblr, and recommendations of the work have made it one of my favorite pieces to write thus far. Thanks. <3

**Author's Note:**

> Your feedback is valuable to all fic writers, and I'm no exception. If you enjoyed this story, please let me know.
> 
> Come find me on [tumblr](http://quicklikelight.tumblr.com).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [For the Taking](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3272009) by [BanimalQ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BanimalQ/pseuds/BanimalQ)




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